Otto Warmbier, who has been detained in North Korea since early January, appeared on state media Monday.
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On Monday, Warmbier was seen in a press conference, where he confessed to stealing the banner from a staff-only section of the hotel and apologized for it. He said he took the banner as a trophy for an OH church which offered him money for it, the Associated Press reported.
In a video clip distributed by CNN, a sobbing Warmbier said he had made “the worst mistake of my life” and pleaded to be released.
“She continued to say that by taking this slogan, we would harm the unity and motivation of the North Korean people and show this country an insult from the West”, Warmbier added, according to the news agency.
“I wish that the United States administration never manipulated people like myself in the future to commit crimes against foreign countries”.
It is unknown whether this confession was coerced.
In the past, North Korea has held out until senior USA officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees, all the way up to former President Bill Clinton, whose visit in 2009 secured the freedom of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Both had crossed North Korea’s border from China illegally. North Korea announced late last month that it had arreste…
Warmbier said that he accepted the offer because his family was “suffering from very severe financial difficulties”. He also said that he was convinced by a secret university society.
The US State Department said it is aware of Warmbier’s detention but declined to comment further due to what it called privacy considerations.
“I was trying to stay in the country”, he told interviewers.
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.
“There is no doubt that the Central Intelligence Agency knows the Z Society’s encouragement of my crime”, Warmbier was quoted as saying.
This is the first public statement from Warmbier’s family since his detainment on January 2 at Pyongyang Airport.
For many seasoned travelers, however, North Korea represents the ultimate “go-to”: a travel experience few others can brag about, in a country unlike any other.
In September 2014, CNN was granted a surprise interview with Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle in Pyongyang after they were detained, along with Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae.
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About 6,000 Westerners visit North Korea per year, a tour guide told USA Today, and one quarter are American. The State Department, which strongly discourages travel to North Korea, has refrained from commenting on his case.
