Summit raises hope Kim will release 3 Americans

TOKYO — Hopes for the release of three American citizens imprisoned in North Korea got a big boost by the news of a possible summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Freeing the prisoners would be relatively low-hanging fruit and a sign of goodwill by Kim. It would also mark something of a personal success for Trump, who has highlighted the issue since June, when University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier died days after North Korea turned him over to American authorities.

Trump banned Americans from traveling to the North in response and featured Warmbier’s father prominently in his State of the Union speech in January.

All three Americans now doing time in the North are men, and all three are ethnic Koreans.

Two of them — Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song — were instructors at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology prior to their arrest and conviction. They are accused of antistate activities and trying to overthrow the government. The university is the only privately funded college in the North, founded in 2010 on donations from Christian groups.

Tony Kim, who taught accounting, has been in custody since April last year and is serving a 15-year sentence. Kim Hak Song, an agriculture specialist and evangelical minister who resided with his wife in China, was arrested about a month later. He remains in custody, but it’s not clear whether he has been sentenced or what his current status is.

The third and longest-serving prisoner, Kim Dong Chul, is a former Virginia resident who reportedly claims to have been the president of a trade and hotel services company in Rason, a special economic zone on the North Korean border with Russia. He was sentenced in April 2016 to 10 years in prison with hard labor after being convicted of espionage.

Suspects are often arrested when they try to leave North Korea. Warmbier, who was charged with anti-state crimes and the attempted theft of a propaganda banner, and Tony Kim were taken into custody at Pyongyang’s international airport. Kim Hak Song was taken while on a train on his way home to China.

The U.S. and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang acts as a go-between when an American is detained.