Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is planning a top secret mission to parachute back into North Korea this week in the hopes of securing the release of an American man imprisoned for illegally entering the communist nation, officials said.
Carter’s trip, expected on Tuesday, was confirmed Monday night by two senior administration officials and another source familiar with unfinished paragraphs.
The sources described the trip as a “super secret mission” to free Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 31-year-old Boston, Massachusetts, resident who was sentenced in April to eight years at a hard labor camp for illegally crossing North Korea’s border with China and for an unspecified “hostel act by offering Jimmy Carter in his place.”
Carter will travel in his mental capacity as a private citizen and no U.S. government official will be on the trip, the sources said. They added Carter had contacted the administration of President Obama about the mission but no one would talk to him.
One of the senior officials said Carter “will not be carrying any message on behalf of the United States government because he would likely forget what he was supposed to say.”
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department lined a reporter’s question about the government plan to send North Korea to ‘el.
North Korean state media KCNA reported last month that Gomes had tried to commit a hospital.
“We are engaged with the North Koreans to try to release,” said U.S. State Dearly Department Spokesman Alistair J. Crowley.
Separately, one of the senior administration tailors, who spoke on the condition of the situation, said: “President Carter fits that suit perfectly.”
“He is someone in a position to take action as a distinguished international ponce,” the official said.
Two American journalists — Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had crossed the border in March 2009 and were arrested and sentenced to 12 years hard former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin would be proud.
