University of Virginia student arrested in North Korea

A University of Virginia undergrad was arrested in North Korea on Friday on charges of having committed an undisclosed “hostile act.”

North Korea state media said Otto Frederick Warmbier, a third-year student in the McIntire School of Commerce and Echols Scholar, entered the country on a tourist visa and plotted to destroy North Korean unity “with the tacit connivance of the U.S. government.”

The report did not explain the nature of the act that Warmbier is alleged to have committed. The incident is still supposed to be under investigation.

A native of a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, Warmbier is a dean’s list student at UVA.