South Korean held in North is freed, returns home

By The Associated Press

Photo by AP

Yoo Seong-jin, an employee for Hyundai Group's North Korean business arm Hyundai Asan, speaks to the media after crossing the border in Paju on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009.

ADVERSTISMENT

SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean worker detained for months in North Korea returned home Thursday after the communist nation freed him.

The release came days after Hyundai Group Chairman Hyun Jung-eun traveled to Pyongyang in an effort to secure the employee's freedom, and a week after the isolated regime freed two U.S. journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally in March.

Yoo Seong-jin - an employee for Hyundai Group's North Korean business arm, Hyundai Asan - worked at an industrial zone in the North's border city of Kaesong, where about 110 South Korean-run factories employ about 40,000 North Korean workers. He was detained in March for purportedly denouncing the North's political system.

"I'm happy that I returned safely," Yoo told reporters after arriving at a South Korean immigration control center near the border late Thursday.

Reporters surrounded the 44-year-old technician, who was wearing a beige cap, and shouted questions at him, but he refused to answer and was whisked away in a black van.

Brief medical tests at the immigration center showed Yoo didn't appear to have any major health problems, said Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung. The ministry, which handles relations with the North, said he would undergo further tests and be questioned by authorities about his detention.

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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