The thing to consider is that if this truly happened in North Korea (don't forget, they're 2 separate countries, thanks to the war) then the government would know without a reason of a doubt that penalties could follow. Since his family hasn't heard from him for a long time, it would be an easy thing for N-Korea to hide things like this and then wipe it under the rug and tell a story later that he died of either natural causes or that he was killed by an inmate or something. But they didn't, they sent him home stirring up things with the west. The mainstream media news channels are the worst for their news value, if they even have any.