DeDee
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I haven't followed this story for quite a while and find the proof of Otto's mistreatment so hideous and unforgivable. Thinking back, didn't NK originally float the story that Otto was removing the poster on a dare or as a favor to someone back home? It's been so long since I followed along here.....
North Korea Sentences Otto Warmbier, U.S. Student, to 15 Years Labor
By CHOE SANG-HUN and RICK GLADSTONE
MARCH 16, 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/world/asia/north-korea-otto-warmbier-sentenced.html
SEOUL, South Korea An American college student who tearfully apologized for trying to steal a political propaganda poster from his hotel in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital [....]
The charges against him claimed that the C.I.A., a secretive American university organization and a member of a church in Ohio had encouraged him to commit the hostile act of stealing a political poster from a wall in his hotel.
[....] he admitted stealing the poster and said that the church member had offered to buy him a used car worth $10,000 in exchange. I made the worst mistake of my life, Mr. Warmbier said.
No way could I say indeed that is Otto in the CCTV in the NK Hotel so the video means little except the person in question almost seems to wish to be caught. No indication of being in a hurry. Why would anyone ask OW to bring back NK propaganda? A $10k vehicle. Did the source offer OW more benefits if he were to get caught and imprisoned?
Otto was only 21yo, att, and an undergrad from UoV. He was not a spy but he may have accepted the dare. That was the worst mistake of his life.
I weep with knowing he could have been my brother. When it happens to one, it happens to all.