© KCNA/ReutersU.S. student Otto Warmbier speaks at a news conference in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang February 29, 2016
A US student arrested in North Korea for a "hostile act" has tearfully apologized for stealing a political banner "as a trophy," saying that a church supported by the American government made him do it.
Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old student of at the University of Virginia, appeared in a government-arranged news conference in Pyongyang, begging for forgiveness for what he said was "the worst mistake in his life."
"I committed my crime of taking out the important political slogan from the staff-only area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel," he said, begging for "the Korean people and government" for forgiveness.
In his comments, Warmbier has said that he had planned his act in detail before arriving in Pyongyang on a tourist visa on December 29.
"On January 1, 2016, I committed my crime of taking down an important political slogan from a staff-only area Yanggakdo International Hotel aimed at harming the work ethic and the motivation of the Korean people," Warmbier said, adding that he was arrested early in the morning on January 2 at the airport.
Warmbier said that he wanted to take the banner as his trophy for a church deaconess, who offered to buy him a used car worth $10,000 if he was successful, and was also motivated by a money award from a UVA secret society that he wanted to join, according to the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)."My reward for my crime was so much smaller than the rewards that the Z Society and the Friendship United Methodist Church get from the United States administration," he said during the news conference, which was aired by CNN and AP.
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