North Korea has sentenced an American student to 15 years of hard labor after accusing him of removing a political banner from a hotel.
The U.S. State Department fired back Wednesday, saying the punishment doesn't fit the alleged crime.
The sentence against University of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier is "unduly harsh," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, calling for his release.
The United States urges North Korea "to pardon him and to grant him special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds," Toner said.
Warmbier had traveled to Pyongyang on a trip organized by Young Pioneer Tours, a China-based travel company. He was arrested on January 2, 2016, as he was about to board a plane to leave the country, on the charge of committing a hostile act against the state.
The North Korean government alleged that Warmbier was encouraged to commit the "hostile act" by a purported member of a church in his home state of Ohio, a secretive university organization and even the CIA.
In court Wednesday, North Korean officials presented fingerprints, photos of a political banner and surveillance images -- proof, they said, that Warmbier committed crimes against the regime.
The 21-year-old student pleaded for mercy.
"My brother and my sister need me," he said. "I beg that you see that I am only human, how I have made the worst mistake of my life."
Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years hard labor
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