Kenneth Bae says he's grateful to ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman

Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American man who spent two years at a North Korean labor camp, said Monday he's grateful to former NBA star Dennis Rodman for "being a catalyst for my release" from the communist nation.

Bae was detained in the North from 2012-2014 after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for unspecified anti-state crimes. In November 2014, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made a secret trip to Pyongyang and brought Bae and another American detainee home.

Bae's detention drew greater attention after Rodman made a high-profile trip to North Korea in January 2014 for an exhibition game marking the birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and made remarks from there that appeared to blame Bae for the detention.

"I believe that he did apologize to our family afterwards," Bae said in an interview with CNN. "I just want to thank Dennis Rodman for being a catalyst for my release ... If I meet him some day, I just want to say thank you for what he's done that really brought attention, international attention for my plight."

While in the North, Bae said he had to work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, "working on the field, doing farming and labor, carrying rocks and shoveling coal."

"All those things were physically very demanding ... very difficult especially (because) I had back problems and different issues that I had before imprisonment," he said. "But along the way, I found myself adjusting to life in North Korean prison, depending upon God."

Bae also said North Korean officials abused him verbally.

"There was one prosecutor assigned to my case for the last year of my imprisonment. He came to me almost every week and said, 'No one remembers you. You have been forgotten by people, your government. You're not going home anytime soon. You'll be here for 15 years. You'll be 60 before you go home,'" he said.

Bae has written a book detailing his ordeal in the North.

Titled "Not Forgotten: The True Story of My Imprisonment in North Korea," the memoir is scheduled to be released this week. (Yonhap)