Posted on 03/15/2016 9:28:04 PM PDT by Fali_G
North Korea's supreme court sentenced American student Otto Warmbier to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, China's Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was detained by the North in January for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel in Pyongyang and had confessed to crimes against the state, North Korean media said previously.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreigndesknews.com ...
That’s 30 years in NK years.
U.S. student detained in North Korea ‘over hotel incident’ - Sat Jan 23, 2016
Warmbier had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel when the incident that led to his arrest occurred. The Yanggakdo is a towering structure on an island in the middle of the Taedong river, which cuts through central Pyongyang.
China-based Young Pioneer Tours is a North Korea travel specialist that describes itself on its website as “an adventure tour operator that provides ‘budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from’”.
During his five-day New Year’s tour of North Korea, staff at Young Pioneer Tours said Warmbier had acted normally, and was keen to see daily life in one of the world’s most isolated countries, which is visited by around 6,000 Western tourists a year. Ten other U.S. citizens were on the tour.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0V1063
INDEPENDENT article with 2 photos - Friday 22 January 2016 . . .
The US student being held by North Korea amid accusations he committed a “hostile act against the state” was travelling with a group of young people who were out drinking vodka until 5am the night before, according to a man who was due to be on the same flight.
The 25-year-old added: “The tour operator eventually got through to Otto on the phone. He said to her that he didn’t want to leave and had a headache and that he wanted to go to hospital. She preferred him to get on the plane and go to a hospital in China….He hung up the phone and that was the last they heard of him. There was a frantic search when they landed in China.
“There was another person sitting next to me on the plane. This person said he [Otto] had said something to the guard. At the gate for the plane there was a woman collecting tickets and an armed soldier. According to the person next to me he [Otto] said something to the soldier and then the soldier started yelling at him and dragged him off.
UVA Student Detained in North Korea for ‘Hostile’ Act - Jan 22, 2016 |Updated: Mar 1, 2016
[an article with some details about Mr. Warmbier, including pictures; scroll down for videos of him pleading for mercy at a press conference]
from Wikipedia
Warmbier was arrested while in the process of departing North Korea from the Pyongyang airport.[4] His arrest was purportedly due to an incident at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, where he was staying along with around 100 other westerners, including numerous other American citizens, all of whom left the country without incident. His alleged crime has been characterized as “acts of hostility against the state” by the North Korean government. On February 29, 2016 he confessed to stealing a piece of North Korean propaganda from his hotel’s staff-only section to take back to the United States as a “trophy” for someone willing to recompense him with a $10,000 reward. It has been speculated that his continued detention is being used to gain political bartering power for the North Korean government in the wake of their recent nuclear arms testing.[4][10] On March 16, he was reportedly sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Frederick_Warmbier
lurch negotiated the best deal possible for him./s
Which charity?
Play stupd games, win stupid prizes.
No idea. From what I remember reading about this earlier, he didn’t say. The whole thing is odd, and doesn’t add up. He had said that he saw this as an opportunity to help his family out of severe financial difficulty, yet he wasn’t offered money, just a used car or a charitable donation. His family wouldn’t have been helped much, if at all. And he had said that the members of a secret society at UVA urged him to do it. I find it hard to believe that there wasn’t one sane person who realized how bad the repercussions could be, and would have told someone who could have stopped him. If I had told people in college I was going to do something that stupid, I have no doubt that almost all of them would have said something to the school, the church, or my family.
You beat me!
I’m betting he didn’t steal it. It was probably given to him by a hotel member and then it was used as an entrapment.
He was probably told that he could go home if he signed the confession.
His only mistake was visiting North Korea.
Ahem, was.
What responsible parent would allow a child to travel to NK, let alone chicago?
Haha.
St00pid iz as st00pid duz.
I keep a running list in my head of places never to go and, after those countries that are actively fighting wars, North Korea is tops.
Yeah, but it’d be worth it, though! Okay, probably not.
Absolutey. Just another liberal doofus.
Just watch. Clinton will fly ASAP. We’re he black, Jesse Jackson.
I would say about the same odds as Trump negotiating the protestors away from his speaking venues. None.
This kid tried to steal a plaque off the wall of the motel with some communist motto on it. It was larger than he expected, all he could do was tear it off the wall (vandalism) and run away. He was on camera doing the damage. Some person in the US wanted to buy the plaque off him if he managed to steal it.
Kid is no innocent and will serve to remind other stupid kids that other countries don't just slap you on the wrist like in the US. Sad thing is he will probable die in prison learning his mistakes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.