Otto Warmbier, a US university student being held by North Korea, was detained before boarding his flight to China over an unspecified incident that had taken place earlier at his hotel, his travel company said yesterday.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency on Friday said that Warmbier “was caught committing a hostile act against the state,” which it said was “tolerated and manipulated by the US government.”
Charlotte Guttridge, a tour leader at Young Pioneer Tours and the only outside witness to Warmbier’s detention, said the 21-year-old University of Virginia student was not with other tourists when the events that appear to have prompted his arrest occurred.
“What happened, happened at the hotel and my belief is that Otto kept it to himself out of hope it might go unnoticed,” Guttridge said.
Guttridge and colleagues at Young Pioneer Tours declined to share further details of exactly what had taken place, citing the safety of their client.
When Warmbier’s group reached the airport, he appeared to have been purposefully delayed at immigration, Young Pioneer Tours director Troy Collings said.
As the tourists checked-in at the gleaming, recently-renovated terminal, Warmbier was taken aside by two airport officials and escorted into a small immigration room behind a wooden door to one side of the check-in area.
As Guttridge waited for Warmbier to come out of the room, she instructed the rest of her tour group to board the North Korean Air Koryo flight bound for Beijing.
“When it became clear that he was not coming, I had to board the flight,” Guttridge said.
As the Russian-made Tupolev airliner prepared to leave the terminal, an airport official boarded the plane and told Guttridge that Warmbier had been “taken to hospital.”
Staff at the tour operator said that, as far as they knew, Warmbier had not been in possession of any religious or political literature.
The US Department of State said in a statement that it was aware of reports that a US citizen had been detained in North Korea, but gave no further details, citing privacy concerns.
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