North Korea confirms US soldier Travis King defected over ‘racial discrimination’ in Army and he is now seeking refugee status

After a month of silence, secretive North Korea has finally confirmed it is holding US soldier Travis King, as the hermit kingdom claims he defected due to mistreatment and “racial discrimination” within the US military.

The report came out of North Korean state media on Wednesday and is the first public acknowledgment of the American’s defection from North Korea to the North.

US soldier, Private Travis T. King, fled into North Korean territory while on a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area along the heavily fortified border between North and South in July.

According to eyewitnesses, he was last spotted laughing over the DMZ.

US officials say they believe he crossed over on purpose, a day after he was supposed to report to a US military base.

North Korean investigators say they have now concluded that King crossed the border deliberately, illegally and with the intention of remaining in the country or fleeing to a third country.

According to Wednesday’s report from the state news agency KCNA, King has fled north because of “inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the United States military.”

“During the investigation, Travis King confessed that he had decided to come to the DPRK (the initials of the official name of the North) because he had a bad feeling about inhumane treatment and racial discrimination in the US military,” KCNA reported.

“He also expressed his willingness to seek refugee status in the DPRK or a third country, saying he was disappointed in the unequal American society.”

The statement ended by saying that the investigation will continue.

There were no photos or videos of King in the kingdom, details of where he is being held or his current condition.

King had been facing disciplinary action for a series of alleged crimes in South Korea for which he was jailed.

The soldier was told to return home after his release from prison. Instead, King joined a tour group and was spotted laughing at the border as he ran past the demilitarized zone into the communist country.

In July, Rep. Michael McCaul said he was concerned the North would capitalize on the 23-year-old’s departure and set a price for his return.

“We see this with Russia, China, Iran: If they capture an American, especially a soldier, they charge a price for it,” McCaul told ABC last month. “And that worries me.”

Speaking of King’s decision to enter the communist country, McCaul “suggested that he ran away from his problems.”

“He faced disciplinary action and was going to get a flight back to the United States,” McCaul explained.

That plane would have taken King to Texas, where he would face an “end of administrative segregation for foreign conviction” hearing after he had spent 47 days in a South Korean detention center.

“But instead he didn’t get on the plane, went to the DMZ with a tour group, and then ran across the line,” McCaul said. “You just don’t.”

According to U.S. officials, King was fined for assault while stationed in South Korea and held for more than a month before being escorted by the U.S. military to Incheon International Airport for a commercial flight to Dallas, Texas.

Once through security checks, he told airline staff at the departure gate that he had lost his passport and returned to the terminal, an airport official said on condition of anonymity.

King then took part in a civilian tour of the armistice village of Panmunjom as he stormed across the military demarcation line that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War ended with a ceasefire in 1953.

A tourist on the border tour captured King in a photo just before he stormed into the secret communist state.

King was spotted wearing a black T-shirt and hat, bought from a gift shop in the Demilitarized Zone, as he peers across the border into the secretive communist country.

Witnesses said he laughed hysterically as he made the mad dash after fleeing his military superiors and joining the tour.

The tourist who witnessed King’s crossing and took the photo of the soldier, New Zealand’s Sarah Leslie, initially said he thought it was a stunt “for TikTok.”

The group left Seoul by bus in the early morning and Leslie noticed that King was traveling alone and did not seem to talk to others during the tour. At one point, she said, he bought a DMZ hat from a gift shop.

The tour was nearing its end on Tuesday afternoon – the group had just exited the building and were busily taking photos – when they saw King running ‘really fast’.

“I initially assumed he had a friend filming him in some stupid prank or stunt, like a TikTok, the dumbest thing you can do,” Leslie said. “But then I heard one of the soldiers yell, ‘Get that guy.'”

Last month, Pentagon spokesman Sabrina Singh said the U.S. military counterintelligence and the U.S. armed forces in South Korea are now conducting an investigation into what led King to make such a puzzling decision.

Singh declined to comment directly when asked if the Pentagon believed King was still alive. She said the US military was unable to provide any information on King’s status at all.

“We don’t know his condition. We don’t know where he is being held. We don’t know the status of his health,” Singh said, describing his formal status in the army as “AWOL” or absent without leave.