US veteran held in North Korea says video confession was coerced with threat of long jail term

SAN FRANCISCO – The 85-year-old U.S. veteran detained for weeks by North Korea says a videotaped confession he made while he was being held was delivered involuntarily and under duress.

Merrill Newman said in a statement issued Monday that he tried to demonstrate that the statement aired on North Korean state media was not his own by emphasizing its awkward phrasing and poor English grammar.

Newman says that the North Koreans treated him well, but his interrogator told him repeatedly that if he did not apologize for alleged crimes during the Korean War and during his visit to the communist nation he would be sentenced to 15 years in jail for espionage.

Newman was detained in late October at the end of a 10-day trip to North Korea. The visit came six decades after he oversaw a group of South Korean wartime guerrillas during the 1950-53 war.