BEIJING: Looking pale and drawn, an American missionary headed home Saturday after North Korea released him from six weeks’ detention for crossing its border on Christmas Day to protest religious suppression in the totalitarian regime.

Robert Park, his eyes almost closed, made no comment as US consular officials guided him to a transit area in Beijing’s airport after his morning arrival from North Korea. He was to leave later in the day for the United States.

Park, 28, crossed the frozen Tumen River from China into North Korea carrying letters calling on leader Kim Jong Il to close the country’s notoriously brutal prison camps and step down from power — acts that could have risked execution in the hard-line communist country.

North Korea’s government announced Friday it would release Park, with official media quoting him as saying he now believed “there’s complete religious freedom for all people everywhere” in the North. “I would not have committed such crime if I had known that the (North) respects the rights of all the people and guarantees their freedom and they enjoy a happy and stable life,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted Park as saying.

North Korea is regarded as having one of the world’s worst human rights records, with some 154,000 political prisoners held in six camps across the country, according to the South Korean government.

North Korea had previously disclosed nothing about Park during his 43 days in custody.

The report by KCNA, North Korea’s governmental mouthpiece, quoted Park, of Tucson, Arizona, as saying he was ashamed of the “biased” view he once held of the communist nation. It said he changed his mind after his Bible was returned to him and he attended a service at Pongsu Church in Pyongyang.

Park did not respond to questions from reporters Saturday asking whether he had been speaking freely or under duress to KCNA.

He was to head to the United States later Saturday, US Embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson said. “We welcome North Korea’s release of Robert Park,” Stevenson said.

It was the second time in less than a year that an American has been held by North Korea, which doesn’t have diplomatic ties with the US Two journalists were released in August with former President Bill Clinton’s help after they were arrested at the border and sentenced to prison.

Last month, North Korea notified the US that it has yet another American in custody for allegedly entering the country illegally. That person has not been identified by either Pyongyang or the US State Department.