(NewsNation) — A retired general believes the U.S. soldier who bolted into North Korea has defected.
“Perhaps this guy thought he had a better deal on the other side of the border than he was facing back in the States,” retired Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the former assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told NewsNation host Dan Abrams.
Pvt. Travis King fled from South Korea into North Korea, U.S. officials said Tuesday. King had just been released from a South Korean prison after being held on assault charges and faced additional military disciplinary actions in the U.S.
King was escorted to the airport to head back to Fort Bliss, Texas. Instead of boarding the plane, he joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom and ran across the border.
“I think he defected,” Kimmitt said. “This is a soldier who had received a court martial, a bad conduct discharge, was going back to the States to face an uncertain future. It’s hard to get any military benefits if you’ve received a bad conduct discharge.”
King is the first known American detained in North Korea in nearly five years. It’s unclear which additional military charges he faces in the U.S.
“We’ve had this happen not many times in history, but about seven times. American soldiers have gone over to the North. Candidly, they’ve lived a pretty good life as propaganda tools. … The North Koreans go out of their way to give them a house, give them a wife, give them money,” Kimmitt said.
Kimmitt says a major factor is whether King is in North Korea voluntarily or if he is being involuntarily held.
“If the Koreans think that he is a danger or he is a threat to them, he’s not going to have a good time of it,” Kimmitt said. “But, I don’t think that’s the situation.”
He continued: “I would suspect that if this guy truly wants to stay there, he’ll renounce his citizenship and then it’s a completely different situation on the part of the United States. But the presumption is that if an American citizen is held by a hostile power or just being held hostage, the United States will do everything in its power to retrieve that citizen.”
The U.S.-led U.N. Command believes King is in North Korean custody. North Korea has remained silent about the situation.
King’s border crossing unfolded amid high tensions over North Korea’s missile testing since the beginning of last year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.