U.S. detainee Jeffrey Fowle released from North Korea, official say

WASHINGTON -- An American tourist who was arrested in North Korea in May after leaving a Bible at his hotel has been released and is en route home, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Jeffrey Fowle, 56, a father of three from Ohio, was flown from North Korea aboard a U.S. military plane to a U.S. naval base in Guam, said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. It was not immediately clear when he would be home, but he has been seen by doctors, she said.

North Korea demanded as a condition of his release that the U.S. government take Fowle out of the country within a certain "time frame," Harf said. She declined to be more specific but thanked the Swedish government.

Harf said the U.S. government also calls for the release of two other Americans, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller.

Bae, 46, a U.S. missionary, was sentenced by the North Korean government to 15 years of hard labor. Miller, 24, was sentenced by the North Korean government to 6 years of hard labor.

-- The Washington Post