A US Christian citizen has been freed from a North Korean prison after a meeting between former US President Jimmy Carter and government officials.

Aijalon Gomes, 31, was sentenced to eight years of hard labour and fined 70 million won (around £380,000) after illegally crossing the border into the reclusive communist country in January. Charges against him also included committing a “hostile act”.

A spokeswoman for Mr Carter said he had been granted amnesty by Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s ‘supreme leader’.

The news has been welcomed by the State Department in Washington.

Spokesman P J Crowley said: “We are relieved that he will soon be safely reunited with his family. We appreciate former President Carter’s humanitarian effort and welcome North Korea’s decision to grant Mr Gomes special amnesty and allow him to return to the United States.”

Mr Gomes is flying back to the States with Mr Carter and is due to land in Boston today. He was pictured last night smiling as he embraced the former US President at the airport in North Korean capital Pyongyang.

Although the motive for his actions remain unclear, Mr Gomes entered the country just weeks after another US Christian, activist Robert Park, entered North Korea illegally in protest of the country’s poor human rights record. He was expelled from the country just over a month later.

In a similar intervention last year, two American journalists were released from a North Korean prison after former US President Bill Clinton flew to the country to meet with officials.

The US and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations but Mr Carter has been popular with the latter ever since his visit to the country in 1994 when he met with Kim Jong Il’s father, the late Kim Il Sung.