North Korea sentences U.S. tourist to 15 years in prison

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- North Korea's highest court sentenced an American tourist to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion Wednesday, weeks after authorities presented him to media and he tearfully confessed he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.

Otto Warmbier, 21, a University of Virginia undergraduate, was convicted and sentenced during a one-hour trial in North Korea's Supreme Court.

The U.S. government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns.

The court held Warmbier had committed a crime "pursuant to the U.S. government's hostile policy toward (the North), in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist."

North Korea regularly accuses Washington and Seoul of sending spies to overthrow its government to enable the U.S.-backed South Korean government to take control of the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions are particularly high after North Korea's recent nuclear test and rocket launch, plus massive joint military exercises underway between the U.S. and South Korea the North sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed new U.S. sanctions on North Korea in response to what the White House called "illicit" nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Warmbier's sentence was "unduly harsh" and urged North Korea to pardon him and release him on humanitarian grounds.

"Despite official claims that U.S. citizens arrested in the DPRK are not used for political purposes, it's increasingly clear from its very public treatment of these cases that the DPRK does exactly that," Toner said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Warmbier's family in Wyoming, Ohio, could not be reached for comment. Susanna Max, a spokeswoman for Wyoming City Schools, said last month the district where Otto Warmbier attended school had been in touch with the family. She said Wednesday the district continues "to respect their privacy" and declines to comment. The University of Virginia also declined to comment.

Before the trial, Warmbier had said he tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church. That would be grounds in North Korea for a subversion charge. He identified the church as Friendship United Methodist Church. Meshach Kanyion, pastor of the church in Wyoming, declined to comment Wednesday.

Ohio Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said Warmbier's detention was "completely unjustified," and the sentence was "an affront to concepts of justice."

Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he had met Tuesday with North Korean diplomats to the U.N. in New York to request Warmbier's release after the student's parents and Kasich asked him to intervene. Richardson said he was neither encouraged nor discouraged by the meeting with the diplomats, who told him they would relay his request to Pyongyang.

Richardson said based on past experience, North Korea could release Warmbier after sentencing, but current U.S.-North Korean tensions could hurt those prospects.

"My concern now is that the U.S.-North Korean relationship is in a very low, negative ebb, and I hope that does not affect a humanitarian negotiation for the release of Otto," Richardson told The Associated Press.

Trials for foreigners facing similar charges in North Korea are generally short and punishments severe. Warmbier was arrested as he tried to leave the country in early January. He was in North Korea with a New Year's tour group.

U.S. tourism to North Korea is legal. Arrests of tourists are rare but the State Department strongly advises against such travel.

Further complicating matters, Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang acts as a go-between in consular issues when U.S. citizens run afoul of North Korean authorities.

North Korea announced Warmbier's arrest in late January, saying he committed an anti-state crime with "the tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation." It remains unclear how the U.S. government was allegedly connected to Warmbier's actions.

Warmbier had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel. It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.

In a tearful statement made before his trial, Warmbier told a gathering of reporters in Pyongyang he was offered a used car worth $10,000 if he could get a propaganda banner and was also told that if he was detained and didn't return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in the form of a charitable donation.

Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties."

Warmbier also said he had been encouraged by the university's "Z Society," which he said he was trying to join. The magazine of the university's alumni association describes the Z Society as a "semi-secret ring society" founded in 1892 that conducts philanthropy, puts on honorary dinners and grants academic awards.

In previous cases, people who have been detained in North Korea and made a public confession often recant those statements after their release.

In the past, North Korea has held out until senior U.S. 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.

In November 2014, U.S. spy chief James Clapper went to Pyongyang to bring home Matthew Miller, who had ripped up his visa when entering the country and was serving a six-year sentence on an espionage charge, and Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who had been sentenced to 15 years for alleged anti-government activities.

Jeffrey Fowle, another U.S. tourist from Ohio detained for six months at about the same time as Miller, was released just before that and sent home on a U.S. government plane. Fowle left a Bible in a local club hoping a North Korean would find it, which is considered a criminal offense in North Korea.