WASHINGTON — North Korea’s reclusive government abruptly freed an American man Tuesday, nearly six months after he was arrested on charges of leaving a Bible in a nightclub, but Pyongyang refused to hand over two other U.S. citizens still being held.
There was no immediate explanation for the release of Jeffrey Fowle, who was quickly whisked to the U.S. territory of Guam before heading back to his wife and three children in Miamisburg, Ohio. The U.S. has sought unsuccessfully for months to send a high-level representative to North Korea to negotiate acquittals for all three men.
Fowle’s wife, Tatyana, “screamed when I told her,” said family attorney Timothy Tepe, who was notified by the State Department. Tepe said Fowle himself called his wife soon afterward.
The two others — Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller — were sentenced to years in North Korean prisons after court trials that lasted no more than 90 minutes. The three entered North Korea separately. The Associated Press
