A US student presumed dead for 12 years has reportedly been spotted alive in North Korea after being ‘kidnapped’ to be Kim Jong-un’s personal tutor.
David Sneddon, who attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, vanished in China’s Yunnan Province on August 14, 2004.
At the time, Chinese police said the 24-year-old, who was on a student exchange programme, likely died in a hiking accident.
But now, it is claimed that he is alive in Pyongyang – after being ‘abducted’ to work as an English tutor to Kim more than a decade ago.
David is reportedly living in the North Korean capital with a wife and two children.
Choi Sung-yong, the head of South Korea’s Abductees’ Family Union, said new information shows the young man did not die in 2004.
Choi said he was, instead, kidnapped to serve as a personal English tutor to Kim, whose father was then leader of North Korea, Yahoo News Japan reports.
David, who was fluent in Korean at the time of his disappearance, is apparently married to a North Korean woman and still teaches English.
Despite Chinese officials’ belief that the Mormon missionary died 12 years ago, his parents , Roy and Kathleen Sneddon, have long thought he was kidnapped.
They believe he is ‘likely being held captive against his will by the North Korean government’, therefore cannot reach out to them.
At the time the young man went missing, he was studying Mandarin in Beijing as part of his university’s exchange programme.
He vanished in Shangri-La in north-western Yunnan province.
Courtesy: Mirror UK
