PALO ALTO, Calif, Nov 21: North Korea has detained an 85-year-old Korean War veteran from California visiting the country
as a tourist, pulling him off a plane as he was about to leave last month, his son said.
Merrill Newman, a retiree from Palo Alto, California, was taken away a day after he and his tour guide spoke with North Korean authorities during a meeting in which his military service in Korea was discussed, his son, Jeff Newman, said in a CNN interview.
The son, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, said his account of his father’s disappearance and the meeting that preceded it was based on details relayed to him through another American traveling with his father at the time.
“I understand that my dad was a bit bothered but really didn’t go into any detail (about the meeting) with his traveling companion,” the son said in the telephone interview.
The younger Newman went public about his father’s detention hours after Japan’s Kyodo News Service, citing an unnamed diplomatic source in a dispatch from Beijing, reported that an elderly American man who had entered North Korea with a valid visa for sightseeing last month may have been detained. The report did not identify him.
Neighbors of the elder Newman in northern California told on Wednesday they were concerned about his fate after he traveled to North Korea but failed to return.
The San Jose Mercury News reported earlier that Merrill Newman was taken off a plane as he was about the depart the reclusive country on October. 26.
The detention could become another diplomatic bargaining chip for North Korea, which has held Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary, since November 2012. Bae has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. More (AGENCIES)
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