Ohio Gov. John Kasich is calling on North Korea to release a Cincinnati-area native who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor on Wednesday.
Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student, was detained in North Korea in January for stealing a flag with a political banner from a hotel, which the state considered a "hostile act."
"North Korea should immediately release Otto Warmbier and let him return to his family here in Ohio," Kasich said in a news release Wednesday. "His detention was completely unjustified, and the sentence North Korea imposed on him is an affront to concepts of justice. Continuing to hold him only further alienates North Korea from the international community."
At a news conference at the end of February organized by North Korean officials, Warmbier said he was trying to disrupt the unity of North Korea and that he had been manipulated to steal the banner by the U.S. government.
The court held that he had committed a crime "pursuant to the U.S. government's hostile policy toward (the North), in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist."
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the sentence was "unduly harsh" and urged North Korea to pardon Warmbier and release him on humanitarian grounds.
Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he met with North Korean diplomats in New York on Tuesday to request Warmbier's release after the student's parents and Kasich asked him to intervene. The diplomats said they would relay his request to Pyongyang.
Warmbier was arrested as he tried to leave the country in early January. He was in North Korea with a New Year's tour group. U.S. tourism to North Korea is legal, and arrests of tourists are rare, but the State Department strongly advises against such travel.
Warmbier also said that he stole the banner on behalf of a congregation member at Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming, Ohio, and as an attempt to get into the University of Virginia's secretive "Z Society."
The magazine of the university's alumni association describes the Z Society as a "semi-secret ring society" founded in 1892 that conducts philanthropy, puts on honorary dinners and grants academic awards.
Warmbier said before his trial that he was offered a used car worth $10,000 and was also told that if he was detained and didn't return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother.
Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties."
On Wednesday, Kasich called for the White House to intervene to bring Warmbier home.
"I urge the Obama administration to redouble its efforts to secure his release and ask all Ohioans to continue to lift up Otto and his family in prayer in support of his swift, safe return," said Kasich, who is running for president.
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story
(c)2016 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)
