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Who Are the 3 American Detainees Freed by North Korea?

People walked away after paying respects at the statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at Mansu Hill in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sunday.Credit...Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Updated May 9.

One was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in 2016 for an espionage conviction. Two others are scholars — one studies accounting, the other agriculture — who taught at a prestigious science and technology university before they were arrested in 2017 on suspicion of “hostile acts.”

All three are Korean-American men who were held in North Korea until Wednesday, when they were released during a visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

The three former detainees share a common surname, Kim, but they are not related. Their release removes a point of tension as President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, prepare for their summit meeting, the first face-to-face encounter by the top leaders of the two nations.

Previous Americans jailed in North Korea have been treated brutally. One of them, Otto F. Warmbier, died in June 2017 after being released from 17 months of captivity. His parents said he had been tortured, and a coroner found that he had suffered extensive brain damage.

Mr. Warmbier, an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, had been convicted in March 2016 of trying to steal a propaganda poster while on a trip to North Korea and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. “Tortured beyond belief by North Korea,” an outraged Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter last September.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump, called the three released Americans were “wonderful gentlemen,” who, he said, “seem to be in good health.”

Here is what is known about the three former detainees.

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Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in 2014, where two of the detainees worked.Credit...APTN, via Associated Press

Kim Hak-song, also known as Jin Xue Song, was arrested on May 6, 2017. He worked at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, and it was not clear whether his arrest was connected with that of his colleague Tony Kim two weeks earlier.

The university said in a statement that he had been doing agricultural development work at its research farm and was arrested after a trip there.

According to CNN, Mr. Kim, an ethnic Korean, was born in Jilin, China, near the North Korean border, and emigrated to the United States in the 1990s. After becoming an American citizen, the network said, Mr. Kim returned to China and studied agriculture at Yanbian before moving to Pyongyang, the capital.

The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, where Kim Hak-song and another detainee, Tony Kim, worked before their detention, said on Wednesday its leadership and international faculty rejoiced over the news, thanking diplomats who have worked for the Americans’ release.

“All three men have been daily in our thoughts; and our hopes and prayers have been fulfilled by their release,” the school said in a statement. “On behalf of the PUST community, the leadership wants to express our sincere hope that our two co-workers and Mr. Kim Dong-chul can now enjoy some peace and rest with their families and friends; and begin to rebuild normal life.”

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Tony Kim in California in 2016, in a photo provided by his family.

Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang-duk, was arrested on April 23, 2017. He had spent a month teaching accounting at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and was trying to board a plane to leave the country when he was arrested, according to the chancellor of the university, Chan-Mo Park.

“The cause of his arrest is not known, but some officials at P.U.S.T. told me his arrest was not related to his work at P.U.S.T.,” Mr. Park told Reuters. “He had been involved with some other activities outside P.U.S.T., such as helping an orphanage.”

Mr. Kim, who is in his 50s, had previously taught at Yanbian University of Science and Technology, an affiliated institute in the Chinese province of Jilin, near the North Korean border. He had most recently been living in North Korea with his wife, who is believed to still be in the country.

Mr. Kim studied accounting at the University of California, Riverside, and at Aurora University, and he worked as an accountant in the United States for more than a decade, according to his Facebook page.

“We are very grateful for the release of our husband and father, Tony Kim, and the other two American detainees,” Tony Kim’s family wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. “We want to thank all of those who have worked toward and contributed to his return home. We also want to thank the president for engaging directly with North Korea. Mostly, we thank God for Tony’s safe return.”

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Kim Dong-chul, center, an American businessman, was escorted to his trial in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2016.Credit...Kim Kwang Hyon/Associated Press

Kim Dong-chul, a businessman, was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in April 2016 on charges of spying and other offenses.

A month before his trial, Mr. Kim appeared at a government-arranged news conference in Pyongyang and apologized for what he described as his attempted theft of military secrets in collusion with South Koreans. The South Korean spy agency has denied any involvement.

Mr. Kim’s predicament was not known until January 2016, when the North Korean government let CNN interview him in Pyongyang. At that time, Mr. Kim identified himself as a 62-year-old naturalized American citizen who lived in Fairfax, Va. He said he had once run a trading and hotel services company in Rason, a special economic zone near North Korea’s borders with China and Russia.

He said he was arrested in October 2015 while meeting with a former North Korean soldier to receive classified data.

Sewell Chan and Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting.

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