The U.S.’s efforts to help Warmbier are complicated by having no diplomatic relations with North Korea.
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North Korean officials paraded a detained University of Virginia student Monday who has been jailed for two months accused of attempting to steal a political banner at a Pyongyang hotel.
North Korea’s state media said in January that Mr Warmbier “was caught committing a hostile act against the state”, which it said was “tolerated and manipulated by the USA government”.
The country’s media hadn’t yet released details of what charges or punishment Warmbier faces.
The acquaintance also said the church would pay his mother $200,000 if he was detained by the North and did not return, KCNA quoted Mr Warmbier as saying.
Other Westerners detained in North Korea have previously confessed to crimes against the state, though many later recant their confessions after being released, saying they were made under duress. It said Warmbier was acting under “the US government’s acquiescence and control”, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
The undergraduate had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, close to the capital, Pyongyang.
It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.
“According to the same official, the church member allegedly encouraged Warmbier “to take an important political slogan from North Korea in order to weaken the ideological unity and motivation of the North Koreans” and promised to give him a “$10,000 used car” if the “mission” was successful. He said the church member told him the slogan would be hung on its wall as a trophy. Otto Frederick Warmbier claimed that he took the propaganda slogan as per the Friendship United Methodist Church’s request.
“I was trying to stay in the country”, he told interviewers.
Warmbier’s parents are happy to finally see their son.
“You can imagine how deeply anxious we were and what a traumatic experience this has been for us”, Warmbier’s father, Fred Warmbier, said in a statement provided by the University of Virginia.
An official in the university’s communications office could not immediately be reached for comment. The “Z Society” was founded in 1892 and is known for its honorary dinners, academic awards and philanthropic activities.
Responding to his appearance in their first public statement since his detention, the student’s family said they hoped his “sincere apology” would make it possible for the authorities to allow him to come home.
Appearing to weep at one point in the video, Warmbier says, “I entirely beg you and the government of the DPR Korea for your forgiveness”.
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All across North Korea, from factories and government offices to hillsides and intersections, there are propangandistic slogans lauding the ruling Kim regime, which maintains power through an all-encompassing personality cult.
