Student under manipulation of USA government, N Korea says

North Korea announced on Friday it arrested Warmbier for committing a “hostile act” orchestrated by the U.S.

The report said the University of Virginia undergraduate “was arrested while perpetrating a hostile act against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea after entering it under the guise of a tourist”.

“They (North Korea) kind of trickle information out, but what’s actually going on can be very different”, said attorney Timothy Tepe of Lebanon, Ohio, adding that he learned that North Korean authorities monitor reports and comments about detainees.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, campaigning in New Hampshire as a Republican presidential candidate, called the arrest “inexcusable”. He sent a message via his Twitter account saying the student “should be released & returned immediately”.

Warmbier is from Wyoming, Ohio, and was studying finance at the University of Virginia.

Warmbier was a top student at his high school in a northern Cincinnati suburb and was described as a skilled soccer player. He attended high school in Wyoming, a suburb of Cincinnati, and was the salutatorian of his graduating class in 2013, said Susanna Max, spokeswoman for Wyoming City Schools.

U.Va. spokesman Anthony P.de Bruyn said the university has been in touch with Warmbier’s family, but declined to comment further or say whether he was in the region during winter break on a university-affiliated program.

An attorney who represented Jeffrey Fowle in 2014 advised caution for those involved with the student. We are also assisting the U.S Department of State closely with regards to the situation. “You have to be careful what you say”.

Meanwhile, a United Nations investigator said on Friday that the world must back a criminal prosecution of North Korea’s leaders as there has been no improvement in human rights there in the two years since a United Nations report detailed Nazi-style atrocities.

The company statement said Warmbier was detained at the Pyongyang Airport on January 2, but didn’t explain what exactly happened at the hotel.

The U.S. and Canada advises their citizens against traveling to North Korea.

While the vast majority of tourists to North Korea are from China, roughly 6,000 westerners visit the country annually.

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul told The Wall Street Journal that the embassy was aware of Warmbier’s detention.

North Korea has a long history of detaining foreigners, and the USA and Canadian governments advise against travel there. Most are adventure-seekers curious about life behind the last sliver of the iron curtain, and ignore critics who say their dollars prop up a repressive regime.