Tokyo: North Korea released Australian student Alek Sigley on Thursday after being held in the detention centre for more than a week. Soon after the release he expressed gratitude for the support and said that he wanted to go back to his normal life.
Later on Thursday he arrived at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Sigley was released following intervention from Swedish diplomats and had been taken to the Australian Embassy in Beijing, before being filmed at Beijing Capital International Airport earlier on Thursday.
The circumstances around why the young Australian was detained remains unclear.
Since late June he was not in contact with his friends and family members. After which he was reported missing leading to diplomatic efforts by the Australian government, that caught the attention of the media.
Sigley's detention is the first known arrest of a foreigner in North Korea since that of American student Otto Warmbier, who was sentenced to 15 years hard labour for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster during his visit to Pyongyang in December 2015.
A year and a half later, Warmbier was repatriated to the US while in a coma and died six days later on June 19, 2017.
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