The University of Virginia student detained in North Korea confessed, in a highly orchestrated press conference Monday, to the “very severe and pre-planned” crime of trying to steal a propaganda sign from a hotel in Pyongyang.<br />Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old economics major, had not been seen since he was arrested at Pyongyang airport on Jan. 2, at the end of a five-day tour to North Korea.<br />But it wasn’t until three weeks later that Kim Jong Un’s regime announced it was holding the Ohio native for an unspecified “hostile act” against the state.<br />Escorted by North Korean guards into a press conference in Pyongyang on Monday, Warmbier, reading from hand-written notes, said that he had tried to steal a political sign promoting “the [North] Korean people’s love for their system” from the hotel, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
