Seoul, South Korea — A Canadian aid worker detained in North Korea has been freed, a Canadian diplomat said Monday, after the man reportedly spent three months in captivity accused of trying to start a church.
Canadian consular officials met Kim Je-yell Saturday at the border between North Korea and China, said Jess Dutton, a counselor at the Canadian Embassy in Seoul.
"Canadian officials in Seoul have been providing consular assistance to Mr. Kim, and we are grateful to North Korean authorities for providing us with consular access to Mr. Kim," Dutton told The Associated Press.
He said diplomats had reunited Kim with his family but declined to comment on his current location, citing their request for privacy.
Kim, who set up a dental clinic in 1997 in the northeastern city of Rajin, was arrested Nov. 3 by North Korean security officials, according to Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded radio station.
During an interrogation, Kim wrote in a statement that he criticized the North Korean regime and tried to set up a church in the North, according to the report.
North Korea nominally allows freedom of religion to its 23 million people, but the practice is severely restricted. The U.S. State Department last year designated North Korea as a nation that persecutes people because of their religious faiths.
The North has one Catholic and two Protestant churches as well as a Russian Orthodox church.