CNN reports American detained by North Korean government

But the North Korean side produced a USA passport identifying the man as Kim Dong-Chul, 62, who became a naturalised United States citizen in 1987.

In an interview with a CNN correspondent, Kim said he had traveled extensively in recent years between China and North Korea and had made some trips to South Korea as well.

Lim was detained early in 2015 while on what his church said was a humanitarian mission to a nursing home and orphanage that he had established in North Korea.

Even though Lim speaks and understands English, North Korea required he speak in Korean for the CNN interview, which was conducted in a Pyongyang hotel. If confirmed, Kim would be the first American to be detained since the North released three USA citizens in 2014.

“I’m asking the US or South Korean government to rescue me”, was the plea of the man “frogmarched” into a Pyongyang hotel room in front of a CNN reporter.

North Korea’s Supreme Court sentenced Hyeon Soo Lim to life in prison with hard labor for what it called crimes against the state.

“We just don’t know it. Our leaders just don’t know it. China has to solve the North Korea problem”, Trump told Fox News.

North Korean authorities have held Lim since February previous year and sentenced him to a life of hard labor in December for what Pyongyang says was an attempt to use religion to overthrow the North Korean regime.

The South Korean-born Canadian was the head pastor at one of Canada’s biggest churches, the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Mississauga, Ontario.

Is North Korea holding an American prisoner?

“Seeing that this H-bomb test has succeeded, now is the time to abandon hostile policies and work to help North Korea”, he said.

Asked about the similarity of his statements to North Korean propaganda and whether any of them had been rehearsed or pre-scripted, Kim said that they had not, and accused Western media of “misunderstanding” the situation in the country.