(From Reuters)
North Korea said on Friday it had detained a U.S. university student for committing a “hostile act” and wanting to “destroy the country’s unity”, the third western citizen known to be held in the isolated state.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said Otto Frederick Warmbier entered North Korea as a tourist and “was caught committing a hostile act against the state”, which it said was “tolerated and manipulated by the U.S. government”.
Gareth Johnson of China-based Young Pioneer Tours said Warmbier, a 21-year-old student at the University of Virginia, was on one of its North Korea tours and detained on Jan. 2.
An official at the U.S. embassy in the South Korean capital Seoul said it was aware of the reported arrest. The U.S. State Department in Washington had no immediate comment.
Johnson said Young Pioneer Tours was in contact with Warmbier’s family and U.S. officials. Read More