A US senator has introduced a resolution calling for an investigation into North Korea's possible involvement in the unexplained disappearance of an American citizen from China more than a decade ago.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) proposed the bipartisan resolution last week renewing concerns about the 2004 disappearance of David Sneddon, noting that the communist North has a track record of kidnapping foreigners to train spies in languages and culture.
(Yonhap)
Seven senators co-sponsored the resolution, including Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Cory Gardner (R-CO).
Sneddon, then a college student from Utah, disappeared in China in 2004. Media reports last year alleged that he is living in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang after being kidnapped to teach English to current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
"The Senate encourages the Department of State and the intelligence community to work with foreign governments known to have diplomatic influence with the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to better investigate the possibility of the involvement of the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in David Sneddon's disappearance and to possibly seek his recovery," the resolution said.
The State Department has said there is "no verifiable evidence" Sneddon was kidnapped by the North.
North Korea has a record of kidnapping foreign nationals.
In 2002, then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted that 13 Japanese citizens were kidnapped to the North in the 1970s and 1980s to train communist spies in the Japanese language and culture. He then allowed five of them to return to Japan, saying that the eight others were dead. (Yonhap)
