Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that North Korea has released Otto Warmbier, an American serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts.

Axar.az reports citing CBS NEWS.

Tillerson says that Warmbier is on his way back to the U.S. to be re-united with his family. He says in a statement that the State Department secured Warmbier's release at the direction of President Trump. Tillerson says the State Department continues discussing two other detained Americans with North Korea.

The announcement comes as former NBA player Dennis Rodman is paying a return visit to North Korea. Rodman said ahead of his trip that the detained Americans were not on his agenda for the visit, his fifth to the country but his first with President Trump in office.

Warmbier is a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati. He was sentenced in March 2016 after a televised tearful public confession to trying to steal a propaganda banner.

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reported last year that Warmbier was in North Korea for a five-day visit and was detained at Pyongyang's airport ahead of a flight back to China.

Kim Dong Chul, who was born in South Korea but is also believed to have U.S. citizenship, is serving a sentence of 10 years for espionage in the North, and in April this year, Tony Kim, who also goes by his Korean name Kim Sang-duk, was detained according to the Pyongyang university at which he was working.