North Korea prisoner release a cliffhanger until very end

PYONGYANG, North Korea — After months of anticipation and drama, the release of three American detainees by North Korea played out amid high-stakes diplomacy and was sealed only about an hour before the U.S. secretary of state was wheels-up from Pyongyang.

The three men — Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim — walked on their own from a van and onto the plane of top diplomat Mike Pompeo. It was the culmination of Pompeo’s 12½-hour visit to the North Korean capital, which included a 90-minute meeting with leader Kim Jong Un.

Returning to his hotel from that meeting, Pompeo had given reporters a fingers-crossed sign when asked if there was good news about the detainees. A North Korean official came to the hotel shortly thereafter to inform Pompeo that Kim had granted amnesties to the three and that they would be released at 7 p.m. local time, according to a senior U.S. official present for the exchange. Carl Risch, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, and a doctor went to another hotel to pick up the men and bring them to the airport, the official said.

They finally left custody at 7:45 p.m., and by 8:42 p.m. they were flying home.

The Trump administration has made clear it regarded the arrests as politically motivated.

Relatively little is known about the men, all Korean-Americans, and the circumstances in which they ended up in North Korean custody.

Kim Dong Chul, a former Virginia resident who had reportedly run a company on North Korea’s border with Russia, had been sentenced in April 2016 to 10 years in prison with hard labor after being convicted of espionage. Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim, who had both taught at a university in Pyongyang that was founded with donations from Christian groups, had been held for about one year and apparently had not been tried.

Tony Kim’s son Sol Kim, a graduate student in California, is the only relative of the detainees to have appealed in public for their freedom. On learning of the release of Tony, who also uses the name Kim Sangduk, his family expressed gratitude and credited Trump for engaging directly with North Korea.