The U.S. State Department has confirmed that it sent a team to North Korea to meet with an American who was detained by the communist country in January on charges of illegally entering the North.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told a regular news briefing in Washington on Monday that his department sent a team to Pyongyang to visit Aijalon Gomes.

The team --- comprised of one consular official, two doctors and one interpreter ---- arrived in North Korea on August ninth for a three-day visit.

Crowley said that the basis of the trip was Washington’s ongoing concerns about the American detainee’s health and welfare. He added that while the team was in Pyongyang, it requested North Korea’s permission to bring Gomes home. But unfortunately, the request was not granted.

Gomes was detained by North Korea in January for illegally entering the country, after which he was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined 700-thousand U.S. dollars.