Pyongyang accuses Otto Warmbier of committing an ‘anti-state crime’ by allegedly stealing a political banner from a hotel
American student Otto Warmbier speaks during a press conference in Pyongyang.Photograph: Kim Kwang Hyon/AP
Associated Press
North Korea has presented a detained American student before the media in Pyongyang, where he acknowledged and apologised for attempting to steal a political banner.
Otto Warmbier said a member of a church had wanted the banner, which he took from a staff-only section of the hotel where he had been staying, as a “trophy”.
North Korea announced late last month it had arrested Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate student. It said that after entering the country as a tourist he conducted an anti-state crime with “the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation.”
No details of what kind of charges or punishment Warmbier faces were immediately released.
According to Warmbier’s statement on Monday, he took the banner with a political slogan on it as a trophy for the church member, who was the mother of a friend.
In previous cases, people who have been detained in North Korea and given a public confession often recant those admissions after their release.
He was arrested while visiting the country with Young Pioneer Tours, an agency specialising in travel to the North, which is strongly discouraged by the US State Department. He had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, which is located on an island in a river that runs through Pyongyang.
It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.
Warmbier is a native of Ohio, and Ohio governor John Kasich, while campaigning in New Hampshire as a Republican presidential candidate, called the arrest “inexcusable.” Kasich has urged president Barack Obama to “make every effort to secure Mr Warmbier’s immediate release and keep (his) family constantly apprised.”
Kasich said North Korea should either provide evidence of the alleged anti-state activities or release Warmbier.
In his comments, Warmbier said he was offered a used car worth $10,000 by a member of the church. He said the church member told him the slogan would be hung on its wall as a trophy. He also said he was told that if he was detained and not returned, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in a way of charitable donations.
He said he accepted the offer because his family is “suffering from very severe financial difficulties.”
“I started to consider this as my only golden opportunity to earn money,” he said, adding that if he ever mentioned the involvement of the church, “no payments would come.”
North Korea regularly accuses Washington and Seoul of sending spies to overthrow its government to enable the US-backed South Korean government to control the Korean Peninsula. Some foreigners previously arrested in the North have read statements of guilt that they later said were coerced.
