US student sorry for ‘severe’ crime in North Korea

A US student held in North Korea since early January was detained for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his Pyongyang hotel and has confessed to “severe crimes” against the state, the North’s official media said.

Otto Warmbier, 21, a student at the University of Virginia, was detained before boarding his flight to China over an unspecified incident at his hotel, his tour agency said in January.

North Korea has a long history of detaining foreigners and has used jailed US citizens in the past to exact high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

“I committed the crime of taking out a political slogan from the staff-only area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted Warmbier.

It did not say what the item was.

CNN showed video of a sobbing Warmbier saying: “I have made the worst mistake of my life, but please act to save me.”

Warmbier said a “deaconess” had offered him a used car worth $10,000 if he could present a US church with the slogan as a “trophy” from North Korea, KCNA said.

The acquaintance also said the church would pay his mother $200,000 if he was detained by the North and did not return, KCNA quoted Warmbier as saying.

“My crime is very severe and pre-planned,” Warmbier was quoted as saying, adding that he was impressed by North Korea’s “humanitarian treatment of severe criminals like myself”.

Warmbier’s parents have not heard from him since his arrest, according to a statement from his family provided by the University of Virginia.