According to North Korea, U.S. officials forcibly confiscated a diplomatic package from one of their delegations at John F. Kennedy Airport, calling it an “illegal and heinous act of provocation.”
The North Korean officials were returning from a U.N. conference on rights of persons with disabilities on Friday when they were “literally mugged,” said the official Korean Central News Agency.
“At the airport, a group of more than 20 including those who claimed to be from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the police officers made a violent assault like gangsters to take away the diplomatic package from the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea) diplomats who were in the possession of a valid diplomatic courier certificate,” said a spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry.
“As the diplomats vigorously resisted, they grabbed the diplomatic package using physical violence and made off,” continued the spokesman.
David Lapan, the spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, confirmed that DHS officers did confiscate multiple media and packages from North Korean officials and prevented them from physically retrieving the items.
However, Lapan stated that the officials were not accredited members of North Korea’s Mission to the U.N. and thus had no diplomatic immunity.
“The package in question had no diplomatic protection from inspection,” stated Lapan. “The reported aggression was initiated by North Koreans. The individuals were released without further incident but subsequently refused to board their departing flight without the items that had been seized.”
The State Department also released a statement confirming these events, reasserting that the package had no diplomatic protection and that the officials were not accredited North Korean diplomats at the U.N.
The statement, however, did not mention why the items were confiscated.
This incident occurred only days after North Korea released Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American college student, from detainment, sending him back to his Ohio home in a coma. He was imprisoned for over 17 months.
North Korea claims Warmbier fell into a coma after contracting botulism, a serious illness caused by contaminated food or wounds, and taking a sleeping pill, but American doctors found no sign of botulism in his body.
Warmbier spent five days sightseeing in North Korea in January 2016 with the Young Pioneer Tours travel group, a company that travels to unusual places. He intended to visit Beijing, China, after leaving North Korea, but as he attempted to go through airport security, he was stopped and arrested.
According to North Korea, Warmbier had sneaked onto a restricted floor of his hotel and stolen a political poster.
Following his arrest, Warmbier was put on trial, visibly distraught and crying in front of North Korean journalists. He owned up to his crime and begged for forgiveness and to be released; nonetheless, the North Korean government sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor.
Under the Trump Administration, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began an effort to secure the release of American hostages in North Korea.
On June 6, State Department special representative Joseph Yun learned of Warmbier’s deteriorating health during a meeting with North Korean U.N. Ambassador Pak Kil-yon in New York City. Soon after, on June 12, Yun traveled to North Korea with a medical team to secure Warmbier’s release.
Seeing Warmbier’s terrible state first hand, Yun demanded that the student be released on humanitarian grounds. The next day Warmbier was released and sent home to his family in Cincinnati.
Upon his return to America, doctors found that Warmbier had suffered extensive brain damage during his detainment. He was in a state doctors called “unresponsive wakefulness”
“When Otto returned to Cincinnati late on June 13 he was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands. He looked very uncomfortable – almost anguished,” according to a statement from his family.
On Monday, Warmbier’s family announced that their son had “completed his journey home,” dying with his family at his side.
“It would be easy at a moment like this to focus on all that we lost — future time that won’t be spent with a warm, engaging, brilliant young man whose curiosity and enthusiasm for life knew no bounds,” his family said. “But we choose to focus on the time we were given to be with this remarkable person.”
Multiple senior U.S. government officials have condemned Otto’s death, accusing North Korea’s “brutal regime” of murder.
According to Secretary of State Tillerson, the U.S. holds North Korea “accountable” for an unjust imprisonment.
President Donald Trump affirmed this, stating, “Otto’s fate deepens my administration’s determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency. The United States once again condemns the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim.”
Also in response to Warmbier’s death, the Young Pioneers Tours travel group has stopped offering Americans trips to North Korea.
“The devastating loss of Otto Warmbier’s life has led us to reconsider our position on accepting American tourists. There had not been any previous detainment in North Korea that has ended with such tragic finality and we have been struggling to process the result,” stated the company. “Now, the assessment of risk for Americans visiting North Korea has become too high.”
It has yet to be seen what action the United States will formally take against North Korea for Warmbier’s death, and if Friday’s incident at John F. Kennedy airport was related to Warmbier’s poor treatment during his detainment.
For now, experts suspect that the U.S. will be tougher on China, North Korea’s closest ally, during high level talks this week.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
