Aijalon Mahli Gomes (; June 19, 1979 – November 17, 2017) was an American teacher who was detained in North Korea for illegally entering the country via China on January 25, 2010. On August 27, 2010, it was announced that former U.S. president Jimmy Carter had secured Gomes's release. In May 2015, Gomes published an autobiography, Violence and Humanity. In November 2017, he was found burned to death in what was ruled a suicide. Early life Gomes was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 2001 and subsequently went to South Korea to teach English. Arrest in North Korea For two years prior to his arrest, Gomes taught English at Chungui Middle School in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea for the GEPIK teaching program. As a devout Christian, who regularly attended the Every Nation Church in Seoul, it is thought that he crossed into North Korea to act as a missionary and offer humanitarian aid. Another worshiper at the same church, Korean-American Robert Park, had illegally walked into North Korea one month before Gomes did, but was released after being detained there for six weeks. Gomes wrote in his autobiography that he had initially planned to enter North Korea directly from South Korea by crossing the Korean Demilitarized Zone in Cheorwon on January 18, 2010, but found himself unable to navigate the area on foot. On January 24, he flew from South Korea to China's Yanji Chaoyangchuan Airport and travelled to Tumen City. On January 25 he crossed the Sino-Korean border by walking across a frozen stretch of the Tumen River into North Korea, where he was immediately apprehended by border guards for illegal entry. On April 6, 2010, he was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000 (USD). He was allowed to speak to his mother by phone on April 30, 2010. In June 2010, North Korea threatened "harsher punishment" if the United States continued its "hostile approach" in the follow-up to the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean warship. It was concluded by the United Nations Security Council that the ship had been sunk by a North Korean submarine. North Korea denied any involvement, and threatened that if the dispute continued, they would feel compelled to consider "applying a wartime law" to Gomes, which could mean a life sentence or even the death penalty. The following month, Gomes was