Jeffrey Fowle was unexpectedly freed on 21 October after being held for nearly six months, the US State Department announced.
Fowle was on his way home after negotiators left Pyongyang. The White House welcomed Fowle’s release and thanked Sweden for helping arrange his departure from North Korea. There was no immediate explanation for the release of Fowle, who was quickly whisked off to the US territory of Guam before beginning the journey back to his wife and three children in Miamisburg, Ohio. He had been imprisoned after he left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach North Korea’s underground Christian community.
In a further development, fellow Americans Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae were also given liberty and landed back in the US on 9 November. Miller was serving a six-year jail term on charges of espionage after he allegedly ripped up his tourist visa at Pyongyang’s airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said Miller had wanted to experience prison life so that he could secretly investigate its human rights situation.
