The US has called on North Korea to immediately release an American student sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour for crimes against the state.
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Warmbier was arrested as he was about to board a plane leaving the country and was part of a trip organized by China-based Young Pioneer Tours, CNN reports. He was convicted under an article of the criminal code dealing with subversion, KCNA said. He allegedly attempted to steal a propaganda banner from a restricted area of his hotel at the request of an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church.
It is highly likely Warmbier made the statement under duress.
Warmbier was forced at a staged media conference in Pyongyang last month to admit his alleged crime was “very severe and pre-planned” and said that it was “the worst mistake of my life”.
Richardson has gone to North Korea several times in recent years to secure freedom for jailed Americans.
“The United States and the Department of State strongly recommend against all travel by US citizens to North Korea”, Toner said.
If you decide to take a tour of North Korea and someone double dog dares you to steal something, say no. He said he was offered a used auto worth $10,000 for a banner and told that his mother would be given $200,000 if he was detained, the AP said.
“The accused confessed to the serious offense against the DPRK he had committed, pursuant to the USA government’s hostile policy toward it”, the state-controlled KCNA news service said in a statement on Wednesday.
Political slogans, extolling the achievements of the country and its leaders and encouraging citizens to work harder and demonstrate their loyalty, are all-pervasive in North Korea.
In 2014, detainees Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller were released after a North Korea visit by United States director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr. The U.S. recently condemned the country for its nuclear weapons test on January 6 and its ballistic missile technology test on February 7.
The executive order freezes any property of the North Korean government in the United States and prohibits exportation of goods from the United States to North Korea.
“This underscores the risks associated with traveling to North Korea”.
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The UN Security Council voted unanimously in early March to implement harsher sanctions against North Korea to starve it of money for its nuclear weapons programme. Pyongyang has also made a series of bellicose threats as the US and South Korea conducted annual joint military exercises that the North has branded as a rehearsal for invasion.
