SEOUL, South Korea - An American imprisoned in North Korea was allowed to speak to his family by telephone Friday, state media said.
North Korea sentenced Aijalon Mahli Gomes to eight years of hard labor and fined him $700,000 in early April for entering the country illegally in January and for an unspecified "hostile act."
Gomes, from Boston, was the fourth American detained by North Korea for illegal entry in less than a year. He had been teaching English in South Korea.
The official Korean Central News Agency reported that Gomes spoke with family on Friday. The call was allowed after Gomes asked "for a phone contact with his family for his health and other reasons," the report said.
The brief dispatch from North Korea's capital Pyongyang provided no further details on the call.
KCNA also said Gomes had contact in prison with a Swedish Embassy official to whom he handed a "written petition." The report said that happened before the phone call but wasn't specific.
The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations, and Sweden handles U.S. interests in the North.
Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were held for five months before North Korea released them last August, and activist Robert Park was expelled some 40 days after crossing into North Korea last Christmas.
Gomes' motivation for entering North Korea remains unclear, though he attended rallies in Seoul in support of Park, a fellow Christian who deliberately crossed the North's border to call attention to the nation's rights record.
