3 Americans freed by North Korea reunited with families

May 13, 2018 at 12:43 p.m.

by The Associated Press

Kim Tong Chol, a U.S. citizen detained in North Korea, is presented to reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea on Friday, March 25, 2016. North Korea presented another American detainee before the media on Friday, nine days after it sentenced a U.S. tourist to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion. Kim told in Pyongyang that he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North's leadership and tried to spread religious ideas among North Koreans. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)
Kim Tong Chol, a U.S. citizen detained in North Korea, is presented to reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea on Friday, March 25, 2016. North Korea presented another American detainee before the media on Friday, nine days after it sentenced a U.S. tourist to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion. Kim told in Pyongyang that he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North's leadership and tried to spread religious ideas among North Koreans. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says three Americans released by North Korea have left a Washington-area hospital and have reunited with their families.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Maj. Carla M. Gleason, says in a statement that the men "were grateful, in good spirits and coping well."

North Korea released them last week while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Pyongyang to help set up next month's summit between President Donald Trump and the North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

The men received a hero's welcome from Trump when they arrived back in the U.S. early Thursday and were then taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Gleason says they now "have been reunited with their families. Their time together has been an incredibly joyous occasion. They ask for privacy as they transition home."

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