Travis King, the U.S. soldier who crossed the DMZ into North Korea last year, was sentenced Friday to a prison term equal to the time he has already served.
King pleaded guilty to five charges, including one count of desertion, one count of assaulting a non-commissioned officer and three counts of failing to obey a lawful order.
King was sentenced by a military judge to 12 months in prison for desertion and one month each for four other charges, having already served 338 days.
The defense noted that King had spent 63 days in North Korea in addition to the time he had served in the U.S.
King also received a dishonorable discharge, as sought by prosecutors – King and his lawyers had sought a “bad conduct discharge.”
“Having already served his sentence and shown good behavior, Travis is now free and will be going home,” King’s attorney, Frank Rosenblatt, said.
King, a private, ran across the demilitarized zone that separates South Korea and communist North Korea on July 18, 2023. He had been taking part in a tour group at Panmunjom in South Korea when he crossed the fortified zone into North Korea and was detained.
After what the Pentagon called “weeks of diplomatic efforts,” King was repatriated from North Korea to the United States in September of that year.
“The outcome of today’s court-martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the crimes committed by Private King and will promote good order and discipline within the U.S. military by deterring soldiers from committing similar crimes in the future,” Assistant Prosecutor Alison Montgomery of the Army’s Office of Special Counsel was quoted as saying in an Army publication.
King had been in the Army since January 2021. At the time of the incident, a senior U.S. government official said King had violated part of the Joint Security Agreement and had been deported from South Korea to the U.S. after serving his punishment there.
He was escorted by military police to security at Incheon airport, about an hour and a half from the DMZ.
But rather than going to the gate alone and returning to the United States, King accompanied a group that had just arrived and was heading to Panmunjom, officials said.
King’s lawyers argued that he was encouraged by recruiters to join the Army but struggled to fit in and experienced racist incidents in his unit. In his letter, King, who is black, said he was unhappy in his unit and detailed racist comments such as, “Smile, King, I can’t see you.”
The incident comes 50 years after another U.S. soldier, James Dresnok, defected to North Korea in 1962 after being threatened with a court martial.
According to his sons, Dresnok was in North Korea when he died of a stroke in 2016.
