Report: Soldier Who Ran Into N. Korea Told Story at Airport

More details are slowly emerging about Private 2nd Class Travis King, the US soldier who crossed into North Korea on Tuesday—but his current whereabouts aren't one of them. North Korean state media has yet to say anything about the 23-year-old, the first American known to be detained in North Korea in almost five years. The latest:

• King, a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division, had on July 10 finished a nearly two-month stint in a South Korean prison for assault, the AP reports. He was en route to Fort Bliss, Texas, to possibly face further military discipline and discharge when he somehow left the Incheon International Airport outside Seoul. King later joined a Panmunjom tour and dashed across the border.
• The Korea Times sheds light on that "somehow." It reports military police from Camp Humphreys escorted King to Incheon but were not permitted to go through security and to the gate with him. Once at the gate, King "approached an American Airlines official and reported that his passport was missing, and was able to return out of the departure gate under the escort of an airline employee," an airport official said.

• King had run-ins with the law in South Korea prior to serving time. Reuters reports he was accused of punching a man at a Seoul nightclub in September; the charge was dropped because the alleged victim didn't want to pursue a case against King, reports the AP.
• On Oct. 8, police responded to the report of an alleged assault. King reportedly refused to cooperate with police or answer their questions. He was put in a police car where, according to court documents, he yelled obscenities about Koreans and the Korean army and police and damaged the car's door by kicking it. He was fined 5 million won (about $4,000) in February in that case.
• The White House—which has no diplomatic relations with the North—on Tuesday said the US is "engaging" with South Korea and Sweden regarding King. The AP points out that while Sweden has acted as an intermediary in the past thanks in part to its embassy in Pyongyang, its diplomatic staff were forced out of the country at the start of the pandemic and reportedly haven't returned.

• As for the tour King joined, NBC News reports Panmunjom is located about 90 minutes from the airport and is the sole place along the roughly 155-mile Demilitarized Zone where the North and South "interact."
• New Zealander Sarah Leslie and her father were part of the tour group. She tells the AP that she initially believed she was watching a prank when she saw King sprinting toward North Korea "really fast. I assumed initially he had a mate filming him in some kind of really stupid prank or stunt, like a TikTok, the most stupid thing you could do. But then I heard one of the soldiers shout, 'Get that guy.'"
• As for King's possible fate, Tae Yongho, a South Korean lawmaker and former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, tells the AP he has a hard time envisioning the North returning King to the US because he is a soldier and the two countries technically remain at war. That's because "the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty," the AP explains.

(More Travis King stories.)