An American man with a psychiatric condition, who illegally crossed into North Korea, has been seeking asylum in Venezuela after being presented to media in Pyongyang.

It was not clear how and when 29-year-old Arturo Pierre Martinez, of El Paso, Texas, managed to slip into North Korea. Initial reports said he crossed the river border between China and North Korea. 

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But the American's mother, Patricia Eugenia Martinez, said her son was bipolar and he attempted to enter North Korea by swimming across a river. She said her child was apprehended and sent back to the United States, where he was taken to a California psychiatric hospital.

Martinez said her son is very smart because he got the court to let him out. Instead of coming home to his family, he cashed in on his payday with a loan online, bought a ticket and left for China. 

The mother added the U.S. embassy in Beijing was looking for her son. 

During his presentation to media in North Korea, Martinez scored the U.S. for supposed human rights abuses. He appeared at the north's People's Palace of Culture, which authorities usually hold media  conferences for presenting North Korean defectors who have returned to Pyongyang, or on at least one occasion, a South Korean who was jailed in North Korea.

Martinez' comments followed North Korea's own strident protests of a prooposal in the United Nations that may potentially lead to charges of crimes against humanity for human rights violations against the north's leaders. Critics raised doubts whether Martinez was presented to the media for propaganda purposes.

In recent weeks, North Korea freed three Americans -- two who made it inside the country on tourist visas and Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary who had been found guilty of "anti-state" crimes.

TagsNorth Korea, American