Jeffrey Fowle Returns to Ohio After Six Months of Detention in North Korea

I am happy to see that Fowle has returned to his family and hopefully this serves as a lesson to anyone else who thinks it is “cool” to travel to North Korea:

The State Department announced Tuesday that the 56-year-old Miamisburg resident had been released. The news came about six months after he was taken into custody after leaving a Bible at a nightclub. Christian evangelism is considered a crime in North Korea.

He had been awaiting trial — the only one of three Americans held by Pyongyang who had not been convicted of charges.

The two others were each sentenced to years in North Korean prisons after court trials that lasted no more than 90 minutes. The three Americans entered North Korea separately.

Fowle was flown out of North Korea on a U.S. military jet that was spotted at Pyongyang’s international airport Tuesday by two Associated Press journalists. There was no immediate explanation for the release of Fowle, who was whisked to the U.S. territory of Guam before heading back to his wife and three children in Ohio.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but North Korean media is claiming that they released Fowle due to continuous requests from President Obama:

KCNA: Kim Jong Un freed U.S. criminal, taking into consideration the repeated requests of U.S. President Obama. #DPRK

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 22, 2014