North Korea's sentencing of American student Otto Warmbier to 15 years of hard labour for crimes against the state, has been condemned by Washington as politically motivated.
The US State Department called the sentence, handed down on Wednesday, "unduly harsh" and White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was "increasingly clear" that North Korea sought to use US citizens as pawns to pursue a political agenda.
Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student, was detained in January for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel in Pyongyang, North Korean media previously reported.
"The accused confessed to the serious offence against the DPRK he had committed, pursuant to the US government's hostile policy toward it, in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist," the state-controlled KCNA news agency reported, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Japan's Kyodo news agency published a picture of Warmbier being led from the courtroom by two uniformed guards, with his head bowed, but visibly distressed.
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State Department spokesman Mark Toner called on North Korea to pardon Warmbier, a student from Ohio, and release him immediately on humanitarian grounds.
Human Rights Watch also condemned the sentence.
"North Korea's sentencing of Otto Warmbier to 15 years hard labour for a college-style prank is outrageous and shocking, and should not be permitted to stand," Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW's Asia division, said.
Warmbier's defence lawyer said the gravity of his crime was such that he would not be able to pay even with his death, but proposed to the court a sentence reduced from the prosecution's request of a life sentence, KCNA said.
