Travis King, U.S. Soldier Held in North Korea, Had Been Detained in South Korea

SEOUL—The U.S. soldier being held in North Korea had faced assault allegations in South Korea last year and spent nearly seven weeks in a detention facility, according to U.S. officials, as new details emerged about the legal issues faced by an American who crossed the Korean border.

The fate of the soldier, identified as Army Private 2nd Class Travis King, has handed Washington a fresh challenge in its relations with Pyongyang as tensions have been rising on the Korean Peninsula.

King, 23, remained in North Korean custody on Wednesday after crossing the border without authorization the previous day while on a tour of the Joint Security Area, which is within the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

Adm. John Aquilino, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said on Tuesday that the military was investigating the situation and that, as far as he knew, the U.S. hadn’t been in contact with North Korea regarding the soldier. North Korea hasn’t commented on King.

King is a cavalry scout and has been in the Army since January 2021, without deploying, according to his service record. He was held at a detention facility in South Korea for 47 days, and spent about a week at Camp Humphreys—a large U.S. Army base in South Korea—before being escorted by military officers to Incheon International Airport, U.S. officials said. On Monday, he had been set to board a flight to Texas, where he would face disciplinary actions and a potential discharge, the officials said.

King was involved in two alleged assaults, according to a representative at a Seoul court that sentenced him. In September, he allegedly assaulted a South Korean citizen, outside of a nightclub in Hongdae, a popular shopping and nightlife district in Seoul, according to the representative. That incident made headlines in the local media in South Korea, where incidents involving U.S. soldiers often draw attention.

In October, he was involved in another alleged assault, the representative said. As a part of that incident, he allegedly damaged a police car by kicking it while he was in the back seat, the representative said. In February, he was fined $4,000 for that incident.

King’s mother told ABC News that she was shocked to hear her son had crossed the border into North Korea. “I can’t see Travis doing anything like that,” said Claudine Gates, who lives in Racine, Wis. Gates couldn’t be reached by The Wall Street Journal, and the court representative declined to comment on legal representation.

A spokesman for the U.S. Forces Korea declined to comment on whether King had been held in a detention facility on the U.S. base, but former USFK officials said it was likely he was held at Camp Humphreys. USFK oversees the 28,500 American military personnel stationed in South Korea.

An ‘inconvenience’ for U.S.

Key questions remain unanswered as to how King went from being escorted out of South Korea to entering North Korea, in just a single day. It couldn’t be determined how he got out of the airport terminal and, by Tuesday afternoon, ended up on a tour of the JSA, a site of high-profile summits and a major tourist draw. King then ran into North Korea “willfully and without permission,” a USFK spokesman said on Tuesday.

Washington may be unable to win King’s release, former U.S. officials and close Pyongyang watchers say. Unlike most North Korean prisoner incidents of the past, King voluntarily entered the country, rather than having been arrested for sneaking across the border or defacing state propaganda.

As a cavalry scout, King would likely have been familiar with a lot of sensitive military operational information, such as details about the U.S. Command and Control or the priorities of his unit, said Evans Revere, a former senior State Department official. King may have also even been briefed on matters such as how Washington and Seoul assess the military capabilities of Kim Jong Un’s regime, he added.

“This guy, even though he is fairly low ranking, still has some experience that the North Koreans will be eager to know about,” said Revere, who spent extensive time in South Korea including with the U.S. Air Force. 

The potential information King could share—should he choose to do so—is unlikely to be sensitive intelligence related to war plans or combat-deployment details, Revere added. “But it’s an irritant, an inconvenience and an embarrassment,” he said.

How North Korea portrays King’s detainment could shed light on what Pyongyang might have planned next, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior analyst for Open Nuclear Network, a research group based in Vienna. 

For prior cases, North Korean state media has taken anywhere from a single day to more than a month to mention American detainees. In many instances, Pyongyang chose to publicize the event in state-media outlets geared for global audiences and held back from reporting the news domestically.

For King, North Korea could spin his case as an American soldier who grew disenchanted with the U.S. and wanted to defect for a better life, or state media could stress the “illegal” nature of his crossing the military demarcation line and treat him as a criminal, said Lee, a former senior North Korea analyst for the U.S. government. 

“Much will depend on whether North Korea views it as a good propaganda opportunity,” she said.

Previous Americans held in North Korea

At least six U.S. military servicemen have opted to defect to North Korea over the decades, with all but one of them having crossed through the DMZ. Before King, no American soldier had willfully crossed into North Korea in decades.

In 1965, Army sergeant Charles Jenkins deserted his post in South Korea and fled to the North across the DMZ. He was used for propaganda in North Korea, where he was cast as a capitalist villain in films. After spending nearly four decades in North Korea, he surrendered to U.S. military authorities in Japan and was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. military.

Other Americans have been held captive in North Korea, facing dire humanitarian conditions. Otto Warmbier, an American university student, was detained and imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 for allegedly defacing a political poster while on a tour. Warmbier died in 2017 upon returning to the U.S. with brain damage.

The last American to have been detained by North Korea was Bruce Byron Lowrance in 2018. Lowrance was deported by the Kim regime after roughly a month of confinement—an unusually brisk turnaround. The move came months after Kim met former President Donald Trump for the first time in Singapore, and ahead of a second nuclear summit with the U.S. in Vietnam where talks abruptly broke down.

North Korea does face some risk holding on to King, given his status as an active U.S. soldier. Any personal injury, illness or something worse happening to King under the watch of the Kim regime could trigger a major backlash among the American public, said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, the KF-VUB Korea chair at the Brussels School of Governance. 

“This is not like a missile test, a nuclear test, or an American tourist, American pastor,” Pacheco Pardo said. “You’re talking about someone who serves in the armed forces, and we know how important this is in the U.S.”

Historically, North Korea has coerced confessions from American captives, forcing them to admit they were spying for the U.S. or confess to crimes they hadn’t committed. 

In prior decades, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton went to North Korea to negotiate the release of Americans. In return, the Kim regime enjoyed a boost to national prestige while demonstrating its power and ability to compel such high-level visits.

Seongmin Lee, director of the Korea Desk at the Human Rights Foundation in Seoul, left North Korea a little over a decade ago when he was in his early 20s, and he recalls North Korea’s portrayal of Clinton’s 2009 visit to win the release of two Americans. Lee remembers North Korean state media stressing the two Americans had committed a crime while reinforcing that a former U.S. president had come to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s then-leader, to offer a personal apology and an in-person greeting.

“The impression people got is that these high-profile politicians come to Pyongyang to meet the leader because our leader is great,” said Lee.

Write to Dasl Yoon at [email protected] and Timothy W. Martin at [email protected]

Corrections & Amplifications
Travis King’s identity in a handout photo was reported by Reuters. An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed it to the Associated Press. (Corrected on July 19)