The North Korean government found Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old economics student at the University of Virginia, guilty of committing “severe crimes” against the state for allegedly attempting to steal a political banner from a hotel in the capital, Pyongyang.

The Guardian reports:

Warmbier’s conviction by the North’s supreme court, announced on Wednesday by China’s Xinhua news agency, comes soon after the UN security council agreed a new round of sanctions in response to the regime’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch. The White House also announced a fresh round of sanctions on North Korea in response to those same incidents on Wednesday. …

The US accused North Korea of using Warmbier for propaganda purposes after he made a stage-managed confession in late February.

In a prepared statement read out before TV cameras, Warmbier said a member of Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming, Ohio, described as the mother of a friend, had offered him a used car worth $10,000 if he could return with the banner as a “trophy” from North Korea. …

Warmbier broke down in tears as he acknowledged and apologised for his alleged crime, which he described as “the worst mistake of my life”. …

Warmbier’s parents pleaded with the North to show leniency, citing his youth and the fact that he had made a full confession in public.

Read more here.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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