Another US citizen detained in N.korea

NORTH KOREA: North Korea has detained another American who worked at a private university in Pyongyang, taking to four the number of US citizens being held by Kim Jong Un’s regime.

Kim Hak-song, who worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, was detained Saturday, North Korea’s state news agency said.

Kim was arrested on suspicion of ‘‘hostile acts’’ against North Korea, the official Korean Central News Agency said. ‘‘A relevant institution is now conducting a detailed investigation into his crimes,’’ it said. No other details about him were available.

The State Department said yesterday that it was ‘‘aware of reports that a US citizen was detained in North Korea.’’

‘‘The security of US citizens is one of the department’s highest priorities,’’ a spokeswoman said, adding that the department was working with the Swedish Embassy, which represents the United States in North Korea.

‘‘Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment,’’ she said.

Two weeks ago, North Korea detained another US national, Kim Sang-dok or Tony Kim, as he waited to board a flight at Pyongyang airport. He had been teaching a class in international finance and management at the same university, known as PUST.

PUST is the only private educational institution in North Korea. It is run by a Korean American professor and funded largely by Christian groups. It began offering classes in English to the North Korean elite in 2010.

PUST has more than 60 foreign faculty members, including from the United States, Canada, Britain and China, its website says.

‘‘The mission of PUST is to pursue excellence in education, with an international outlook, so that its students are diligent in studies, innovative in research and upright in character, bringing illumination to the Korean people and the world,’’ it says.

Suki Kim, a Korean American author who taught at PUST for six months and wrote a book about it, described the faculty members holding private prayer meetings and Bible study sessions.

Two other US citizens also are being held in North Korea.

One is former Virginia resident Kim Dong-chul, who had been living in the Chinese city of Yanji, near the border with North Korea, and working in a special economic zone in the North as head of a trade and hotel services company.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April 2016 on charges of spying.

The other is Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who was detained for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda sign from a Pyongyang hotel last year while on a group tour. - Washington Post