US student sentenced to 15 years in North Korean jail for ‘prank’

North Korea’s supreme court sentenced American student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested while visiting the country, to 15 years of hard labour for crimes against the state.

Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student, was detained in January for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel in Pyongyang, North Korean media said previously.

“The accused confessed to the serious offence against the DPRK he had committed, pursuant to the US government’s hostile policy toward it, in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist,” the state-controlled KCNA news agency reported, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.