Last Thursday, former President Jimmy Carter succeeded in getting a special pardon for Aijalon Gomes (pictured right), who was sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor and a hefty fine for trespassing into North Korea.

What didn't happen was a meeting with Kim Jong II that had been widely anticipated when Carter left for Pyongyang last Wednesday, according to the Washington Post.

Jong II was unavailable to meet with Carter, because he took an unexpected trip to China. Former President Bill Clinton, though, met him last year when he carried out a similar humanitarian mission by helping secure a pardon for U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

According to North Korea's news agency, Carter apologized in Pyongyang for Gomes' behavior, with the agency describing the pardon as "a manifestation of [North Korea's] humanitarianism and peace-loving policy."

Gomes, 31, had been teaching English in South Korea and was imprisoned for crossing into North Korea from China. He is also an activist and frequent protester against human rights violations in North Korea and had lived in Seoul before his arrest.

In April, Gomes was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000 for illegally entering the country. Gomes' relatives have declined to say much about him or his situation, though they pleaded for his release on humanitarian grounds after North Korea's state-run media reported last month that he'd attempted suicide.

It is still unclear what prompted Gomes to enter North Korea, but he was photographed protesting for Robert Park, a Christian who was detained after he crossed into North Korea a month earlier, to highlight the country's human rights record.

Those who knew Gomes when he attended Bowdoin College say he was polite, earnest, shy until you got to know him, good-humored, in to theater, and deeply religious. He grew up in an apartment in Boston's black Mattapan neighborhood.