Kenneth Bae in labour camp, says US

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The American missionary Kenneth Bae was moved from a North Korean hospital back to a labour camp last month on the

same day he made a public appeal for Washington to help get him home,

the US state department has said, citing Swedish diplomats who

met with the prisoner.

Bae, 45, has been held for more than a year in North Korea

after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labour on a charge of trying to overthrow

the state. From mid-2013 until 20 January he had been kept at

Friendship hospital in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, his family

said.

“The department of state has learned that the DPRK transferred Mr

Bae from a hospital to a labour camp, a development with which we are

deeply concerned,” state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

“We also remain gravely concerned about Mr Bae’s health and we

continue to urge DPRK authorities to grant Mr Bae special amnesty and

immediate release on humanitarian grounds.”

Psaki said Swedish embassy representatives had met with Bae 10 times

since his detention, most recently on Friday in a labour camp.

“We continue to work actively to secure Mr Bae’s release,” Psaki

said, adding that Washington remained prepared to send its human rights

envoy for North Korea, Robert King, to Pyongyang for that purpose.

North Korea has rejected this offer in the past and withdrew an invitation for King to visit Pyongyang last August.

A state department official said Bae was moved back to the labour camp on 20 January.

Bae’s sister, Terri Chung, told Reuters he had been held in a labour

camp from 14 May last year until 5 August when he was moved to the

hospital.

Chung said her brother had a variety of health issues

including diabetes, an enlarged heart, kidney stones and severe back

pain.

“We are very concerned about his health,” she said.

Bae, a Korean American, last appeared in public at Pyongyang

Friendship hospital on 20 January in front of a group

of foreign and local reporters and asked Washington to help him get

home.

The appearance was his second since his arrest in 2012 when

he led a tour group into the country.

Bae has acknowledged being a missionary and said he conducted

religious services in the North, which is hostile to westerners advocating religious causes.

On Thursday President Barack Obama offered prayers for Bae and US

prisoners held in other countries during remarks at an annual prayer

breakfast. On Tuesday members of the US Congress who served in the Korean war sent a letter to the North Korean leader, Kim

Jong-un, asking him to release Bae.

North Korea in December released the 85-year-old Korean war veteran

Merrill E Newman, a former US special forces soldier who had been

held since October after visiting the country as a tourist. Members of Congress applauded that in the letter seeking Bae’s freedom.