Ex-UN envoy in NKorea to plead case of student

In this file photo, American student Otto Warmbier is presented to reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Former UN ambassador Bill Richardson says he met with North Korean diplomats to request the release of an American student the day before he was sentenced to 15 years for trying to steal a propaganda banner.

Richardson said he was neither encouraged nor discouraged by the meeting on Tuesday with the diplomats from the North Korean mission to the UN. 

They said they would relay his request to Pyongyang.

Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old from Wyoming, Ohio, was sentenced by North Korea's Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Richardson had met the diplomats in New York after Warmbier's parents and Ohio Governor John Kasich  requested his help.

Richardson said based on past experience, North Korea could release Warmbier after sentencing, but current US-North Korean tensions could hurt those prospects.

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