NORTH Korea has sentenced an American student to 15 years of hard labour after
he admitted stealing a propaganda banner from a hotel.
The judgement was handed down on Otto Warmbier, 21, by North Korea’s Supreme
Court, the country’s official KCNA news agency said.
Observers said the harsh sentence was likely a reflection of soaring military
tensions on the divided Korean peninsula following the North’s nuclear test
in January and long-range rocket launch a month later.
In announcing the jail sentence, KCNA said Warmbier had committed his offence “pursuant
to the US government’s hostile policy” towards North Korea.
Warmbier had initially been arrested in early January on charges of “hostile
acts” against the state. KCNA said he was convicted under an article of
the criminal code dealing with subversion.
“In the course of the inquiry, the accused confessed to the serious
offence,” it said, without elaborating.
Warmbier was arrested as he was leaving the country with a tour group. He
later said he had removed a political banner from the staff-only area of the
Pyongyang hotel where the group had stayed.
The sentence was handed down just hours after veteran US diplomat Bill
Richardson reportedly met two diplomats from North Korea’s UN office in New
York to press for Warmbier’s release.
“I urged the humanitarian release of Otto, and they agreed to convey our
request,” Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, told the New
York Times.
In the past, North Korea has used the detention of US citizens to obtain
high-profile visits from the likes of former US presidents Jimmy Carter and
Bill Clinton in order to secure their release.
Richardson has travelled to North Korea several times over the years on
diplomatic missions that have included negotiating the freedom of arrested
Americans.
READ MORE:
You
donut: £100k Top Gear stunt at the Cenotaph was planned for four months…
but Evans claims ignorance
The United States has no diplomatic or consular relations with the North. The
Swedish embassy in Pyongyang provides limited consular services to US
citizens detained there.
Warmbier is one of three North Americans currently detained in North Korea,
which recently sentenced a 60-year-old Canadian pastor to life imprisonment
with hard labour on sedition charges.
The US State Department “strongly recommends against all travel” to
North Korea and specifically warns of the risk of arrest.
Human Rights Watch said the severe sentence was shocking given that Warmbier’s
alleged offence amounted to little more than a “college-style prank”.
“Pyongyang should recognise this student’s self-admitted mistake as a
misdemeanour … release him on humanitarian grounds, and send him home,”
said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the rights watchdog’s Asia Division.
Detained foreigners are often required to make a public, officially-scripted
acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and Warmbier was paraded in front of
reporters and diplomats in Pyongyang last month.
Footage of the carefully orchestrated event showed a sobbing Warmbier pleading
to be released and saying he had made “the worst mistake of my life”.
Warmbier said he had been tasked with stealing the banner by a member of the
Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming, Ohio, who wanted it “as
a trophy” and offered him a used car worth $10,000 if he succeeded.
Political slogans extolling the achievements of the country and its leaders
and encouraging citizens to work harder and demonstrate their loyalty are
pervasive in North Korea.
They can be seen on the streets and in nearly every public building, as well
as every work unit.