US soldier who defected to North Korea dies

By Park Si-soo

This file photo taken on October 12, 2005 shows U.S. army deserter Charles Jenkins, who spent 40 years in North Korea, showing off his new book "To Tell the Truth," which was published in Japanese last week, at a press conference in Tokyo. Charles Jenkins, a U.S. Army deserter who spent four decades in communist North Korea and married a Japanese woman abducted by Pyongyang, has died at the age of 77, officials said on December 12, 2017. / AFP-Yonhap

Charles Jenkins, a U.S. soldier who defected to North Korea and became a movie star there, has died in Japan, according to reports on Tuesday. He was 77.

The former U.S. sergeant died on Sado island on Monday, where he was living with his wife Hitomi Soga, also a former prisoner of North Korea.

He was among four U.S. soldiers who defected to the North in 1965 and was the only one who was released. The others reportedly died in the isolated state, including James Dresnok, who was said to have died of a stroke in 2016.

According to the BBC, Jenkins collapsed outside his home and died of heart problems in hospital. His wife said in a statement that she was "very surprised" by his death and "cannot think of anything," according to AFP.

According to the Britain's Guardian newspaper, Jenkins abandoned his unit while on patrol in South Korea and defected to the North, fearing he would be killed on patrol or sent to fight in the Vietnam War. In the North, he taught English and occasionally played sinister Americans in propaganda films.

He later said the North Korean authorities had turned down his request to be sent to the Soviet Union. He had planned to turn himself in at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, according to the Guardian.

In 1980, he was forced to marry Soga, who was abducted from Japan to teach North Korean spies her language.

In 2002, Soga was freed after negotiations with the Japanese government. Pyongyang then allowed Jenkins to leave two years later, along with their daughters. The family reunited in Japan.

In Japan, Jenkins surrendered to the U.S. army, almost four decades after he defected, and was court-martialed. He was given a 30-day jail term and a dishonorable discharge.

He suffered lingering complications from medical procedures in North Korea and had to be admitted to hospital after his release, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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