US Student Sentenced to 15 Years of Forced Labor in North Korea

Pyongyang - The High Court of North Korea (North Korea) sentenced to forced labor for 15 years against student United States (US), Otto Warmbier. US student is found guilty of crimes against the state.

As reported by Chinese news agency, Xinhua and Reuters reported on Wednesday (03/16/2016), Warmbier who enrolled at the University of Virginia, US authorities detained the North in January. He is accused of trying to steal a propaganda slogan of the hotel where he was staying in Pyongyang.

Warmbier (21) coming from Wyoming, Ohio, tells a press conference in Pyongyang last month that his crime is very serious and has been planned in advance. Warmbier was arrested when about to fly home after a vacation for 5 days with an entourage.

Read also: Detained North Korea due Steal Political Slogan, US Students Apologize

In a statement to local and foreign media in Pyongyang in late February, Warmbier calling an acquaintance that members of local churches, offering a used car worth US $ 10 thousand (USD 133 million), if he could bring the North to the church slogan. Acquaintances, according Warmbier, also offered to pay the mother Warmbier US $ 200 thousand (USD 2.6 billion) if Warmbier detained North Korea and does not return to the US.

"I apologize to everyone and each one of the millions of citizens of Korea (North Korea) and I beg you to see how I was used and manipulated," he said in a statement, while bowing to apologize. Warmbier also called himself deceived by the US government.

North Korea has a long history detain foreign nationals, including a number of US citizens. North Korea with the United States did not have diplomatic relations. In 2014 then, North Korea's release of three US citizens who were detained.

Reported the New York Times, the former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson who went to North Korea, met North Korean ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday (15/3) local time. This meeting is intended to seek the release of Warmbier.