American tourist sentenced to 15 years in North Korean prison

Catherine Garcia, The Week US's avatar
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Barbed wire near the DMZ.
(Image credit: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

A 21-year-old University of Virginia student has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison.

Otto Warmbier was convicted and sentenced by the country's highest court on Wednesday, following a one-hour trial, The Associated Press reports. Warmbier was charged with subversion after he allegedly tried to steal a propaganda poster from a restricted area in the hotel where he was staying while visiting the country with a tour group in January.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.