Student Detained In North Korea Confesses During Press Conference

Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, bows during a new conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo Feb. 29, 2016.

The student, Otto Warmbier, acknowledged and apologized in a conference attended by the media and some members of the diplomatic community on Monday for stealing a political slogan from a staff-only section of the hotel where he had been staying.

“I committed the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel”, Warmbier said, according to state-controlled news agency KCNA.

The official also said the OH church member promised Warmbier a $10,000 used vehicle if the mission was successful.

As Yahoo News reports, Warmbier was arrested in late January after the North Korean government accused him of committing an “anti-state crime with tacit connivance of the USA government and under its manipulation”.

It was not clear whether he had made the statement voluntarily, but foreign detainees in North Korea have previously recanted confessions, saying they were made under pressure.

“I was trying to stay in the country”, he told interviewers.

A secretive fraternal society known as the “Z Society” at the University of Virginia also egged on Warmbier to pull the overseas stunt despite the dangers associated foreign travelers face in North Korea. In a video clip gathered by CNN via Daily Mail, Warmbier revealed that he had made the worst mistake of his life.

North Korea continues to accuse Washington and Seoul of trying to infiltrate the country with spies in order to overthrow the government and have a US backed South Korea control the Korean Peninsula.

It’s unclear whether Warmbier, 21, spoke of his own volition or whether he was pressured into making the statement.

“There is no doubt that the Central Intelligence Agency knows the Z Society’s encouragement of my crime”, Warmbier was quoted as saying.

The source said the group had never had any contact with Warmbier and he’d never been approached to be a member.

“I started to consider this as my only golden opportunity to earn money”, he said.

USA tourism to North Korea is legal and virtually all Americans who make the journey return home without incident.

The student was part of a group trip organised by Young Pioneer Tours whose representative described how he had been detained at the airport.

“Despite what you may hear, North Korea is probably one of the safest places on Earth to visit”, it says on its website.

Former president Bill Clinton went to Pyongyang to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee in 2009, while Jimmy Carter traveled to the North Korean capital the following year to collect Aijalon Gomes, a Boston man who entered the country illegally.

The US State Department advises against all travel to the country.