By FOSTER KLUG and ROBERT JABLON By FOSTER KLUG and ROBERT JABLON ADVERTISING Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean officials detained an 85-year-old U.S. veteran of the Korean War last month as he sat in a plane set
By FOSTER KLUG and ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean officials detained an 85-year-old U.S. veteran of the Korean War last month as he sat in a plane set to leave the country, the man’s son said.
A uniformed North Korean officer boarded the plane Oct. 26 and asked Merrill Newman, a tourist, for his passport before telling a stewardess Newman had to leave the plane, according to Newman’s son, Jeffrey Newman, who spoke with the Associated Press on Wednesday.
“My dad got off, walked out with the stewardess, and that’s the last he was seen,” Jeffrey Newman told the AP at his home in California.
It wasn’t clear what led to the detention. Jeffrey Newman said he was speaking regularly with the U.S. State Department about his father, but U.S. officials wouldn’t confirm the detention to reporters, citing privacy issues. North Korea’s official state-run media have yet to comment on reports of the detention, which first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and Japan’s Kyodo News service.
Secretary of State John Kerry told MSNBC on Thursday in response to a question about Newman that North Korea needed to recognize the “dangerous steps that it’s been taking on many fronts,” including the treatment of its citizens and the start-up of its nuclear reactor.
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