U.S. missionary said moved back to North Korean labour camp

Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary who has been detained in North Korea for more than a year, appears before a limited number of media outlets in Pyongyang in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on January 20, 2014. REUTERS/KCNA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. missionary being held in North Korea was moved from a hospital back to a labour camp last month on the same day he made a public appeal for Washington to help get him home, the U.S. State Department said on Friday, citing Swedish diplomats who met the prisoner.

Kenneth Bae, 45, has been held for more than a year in North Korea after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for trying to overthrow the state. From last summer until January 20, he had been kept at Friendship Hospital in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, his family said.