North Korea: U.S. Soldier Fled Across Border Because of Army Mistreatment

North Korea said Wednesday that an American soldier’s frantic dash across the Korean border last month was driven by “inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army,” according to a state media report.

The announcement, delivered through the reclusive nation’s only news agency, is the first public acknowledgement by Pyongyang that Private 2nd Class Travis Scott is in North Korean custody.

The government-controlled Korean Central News Agency said that the 23-year-old soldier “admitted” to investigators that he’d “illegally intruded” into North Korea. King reportedly confessed he’d decided to cross the border “as he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.