By Ju-min Park
SEOUL, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A Korean-American man who says he
is being held in North Korea was a Christian pastor who had
worked in China and the United States, a North Korean defector
who met him and travelled with him in 2007 told Reuters.
CNN reported on Monday from North Korea that it had been
given access to a man claiming to be an American, who identified
himself as Kim Dong Chul, and who said he had been arrested in
North Korea on spying charges.
He appealed for help from the United States or South Korea
to rescue him.
A U.S. State Department official declined to comment on the
report about Kim, saying that speaking publicly about specific
cases of detained Americans can complicate efforts to get them
released.
If confirmed, Kim, who CNN said was 60 and formerly of
Fairfax, Virginia, would be the second Western citizen known to
be held in North Korea. The other is Korean-Canadian.
CNN was given access to both men this week, just days after
isolated North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test.
The test angered its main ally, China, as well as the United
States. Kim would be the first American to be held by the North
since it released three U.S. citizens in 2014.
A North Korean defector, Ma Young-ae, told Reuters on
Tuesday that she had met Kim in the United States and he had
told church gatherings he was a missionary helping North
Koreans.
"He told the churches that he was a missionary working on
North Korea and sending stuff from China into the North to help
poor North Koreans," Ma told Reuters by telephone, recalling Kim
making speeches around California and Virginia in 2007 and
seeking donations.
'SHOCKED'
Ma, who is working as a missionary based in the New York
area under what she said was security protection, described Kim
as a Korean-American.
"I was shocked to see his face on TV," said Ma.
Kim had told her he was sending medical aid into North Korea
and going in and out of Rason, a North Korean special economic
zone bordering China, she said.
A photograph from a small Korean-American online publication
showed a man it said was Kim talking at an unidentified church
in the Washington, D.C., area, although Reuters cannot
independently verify the picture.
Ma said Kim had once asked her and her husband to come to
China to work with him but she had declined.
Another pastor named Park Simon, who also accompanied Ma and
Kim to several church gatherings in the United States, told
Voice of America that Kim frequented North Korea and called him
from Pyongyang about four years ago.
Kim told CNN he had spied on behalf of "South Korean
conservative elements" and had been arrested in October.
The other foreigner known to be in detention in North Korea,
and who CNN was also given access to, is Hyeon Soo Lim, a South
Korean-born Canadian who was the head pastor at one of Canada's
largest churches.
Lim has been held by the North since February. Lim, who was
60 at the time of his arrest, was sentenced to hard labour for
life in December for attempting to overthrow the North's regime.
North Korea, which is under heavy U.N. sanctions related to
its nuclear and missile programs, has in the past used detained
U.S. citizens to extract high-profile visits from the United
States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.