PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea presented a detained American student before the media on Monday in Pyongyang, where he tearfully apologized for attempting to steal a political banner — at the behest, he said, of a member of a church back home who wanted it as a “trophy” — from a staff-only section of the hotel where he had been staying.
North Korea announced in late January it had arrested Otto Warmbier, 21, a University of Virginia undergraduate student. It said that after entering the country as a tourist, he committed an anti-state crime with “the tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation.”
He was arrested while visiting the country with Young Pioneer Tours, an agency specializing in travel to North Korea, which is strongly discouraged by the U.S. State Department. He had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, which is on an island in a river that runs through Pyongyang, the capital.
No details were released about what kind of charges or punishment Warmbier faces. The Associated Press
