Travis King, US soldier who fled to North Korea, sentenced for desertion

Military judge releases King for good behaviour and time served after sentencing him to 12 months of confinement.

United States soldier Travis King, who fled to North Korea and was taken into custody there, was sentenced to one year of confinement and then freed based on time already served, according to his lawyer.

King pleaded guilty to five charges – including desertion, assault on a noncommissioned officer and three counts of disobeying an officer – as part of a plea deal that was accepted on Friday by a military judge in Fort Bliss, Texas, said his lawyer Franklin Rosenblatt.

The soldier was facing at least 14 charges – including desertion, assault and solicitation of child pornography – filed by the US Army under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The government moved to dismiss nine offences after he pleaded guilty to five charges.

King was stationed in South Korea and was supposed to fly back to Texas last year to face disciplinary hearings after spending nearly two months in a South Korean jail on assault charges following a drunken bar fight.

Instead, he walked out of the airport and crossed the border from South Korea into North Korea in July 2023 while on a civilian sightseeing tour of the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean Peninsula.

He was immediately taken into North Korean custody.

“The judge, under the terms of the plea deal, sentenced Travis to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonourable discharge,” Rosenblatt said in a statement.

“With time already served and credit for good behaviour, Travis is now free and will return home,” the statement said.

North Korea said at the time that King, who joined the army in January 2021, had defected to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the US Army”.

But after completing its investigation, Pyongyang “decided to expel” King for illegally intruding into its territory, and he was returned to US custody in September 2023.

In a statement, the US Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel confirmed King’s guilty plea as part of a deal.

“The outcome of today’s court martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the offenses committed by Pvt King,” prosecutor Major Allyson Montgomery said in a statement.

King’s lawyer, Rosenblatt, said the soldier “faced significant challenges throughout his life, including a difficult upbringing, exposure to criminal environments, and struggles with mental health”, adding that these factors “compounded the hardships he faced in the military”.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies