Former President Jimmy Carter was expected to leave North Korea on Friday with Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American who was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering the country, the Carter Center said. “Former President Jimmy Carter announced that he is leaving Pyongyang, North Korea, this morning accompanied by Mr. Aijalon Mahli Gomes,” the Carter Center said in a statement sent in an e-mail message.
Mr. Carter had been visiting Pyongyang on a private humanitarian mission to win the release of Mr. Gomes, who was sentenced in April to eight years in a North Korean prison and fined $700,000 for entering the country illegally. There has also been speculation that North Korea might try to use Mr. Carter as a conduit to ease tensions with the United States.
Mr. Carter had arrived on Wednesday at the invitation of the North Korean government, but he apparently did not meet with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il.
South Korean officials said Thursday that a special train believed to be carrying Mr. Kim had entered China around midnight on Wednesday, setting off speculation over what might have compelled him to travel to his isolated government’s closest ally while Mr. Carter was visiting.
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