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US soldier who entered North Korea will plead guilty

Facing disciplinary action, Travis King suddenly sprinted across the border from South Korea.

By Alex Willemyns for RFA 2024.08.27 -- The American soldier who suddenly sprinted into North Korea from a border area in South Korea in July 2023 will plead guilty to charges of desertion, assault and disobeying an officer, his lawyer said.

In exchange, the U.S. Army will withdraw charges including possession of sexual images of a child, according to an Associated Press report.

In a statement posted to X on Monday, a lawyer for Travis King, who was a 23-year-old private when he crossed the demilitarized zone, said he would plead guilty to five of 14 charges at a Sept. 20 hearing.

"U.S. Army Private Travis King will take responsibility for his conduct and enter a guilty plea," said the attorney, Franklin Rosenblatt.

"Travis's guilty plea will be entered at a general court-martial. There, he will explain what he did, answer a military judge's questions about why he is pleading guilty, and be sentenced," he said. "Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside of his circle who did not pre-judge his case based on the initial allegations."

The spokesperson for the U.S. Army's Office of Special Trial Counsel, Michelle McCaskill, said in a separate statement that army prosecutors had agreed to the plea deal, but that a judge still needed to approve it.

"If Pvt. King's guilty plea is accepted, the judge will sentence King pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement," McCaskill said in the statement. "If the judge does not accept the guilty plea, the judge can rule that the case be litigated in a contested court-martial."

Facing disciplinary action, King in July 2023 suddenly sprinted across the Military Demarcation Line in Panmunjom, where both North and South Korean soldiers mark the line of control between the countries.

A witness at the time recalled King shouting out "ha ha ha" before suddenly running and disappearing behind some buildings.

North Korean officials later expelled him from the country, with the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, meeting him on the border between North Korea and China. He was then repatriated to the United States, where he was charged with 14 crimes, including desertion.

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