Death of detainee
OTTO Warmbier, the American college student who endured 15 months in a North Korean jail and was returned comatose last week to his family, has died.
The 22-year-old was arrested in January last year and found guilty in a show trial of stealing a poster from his hotel.
Last Tuesday he was returned to his Ohio family in a vegetative state, which Pyongyang blamed on a bout of food poisoning and which his family said was the result of him being “brutalised and tortured”.
Upon his death yesterday, there was US condemnation of Kim Jong-Un’s regime ranging from President Donald Trump to the young college student’s family.
“The awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement shortly after his death.
“It’s a brutal regime, and we’ll be able to handle it,” Mr Trump said.
“A lot of bad things happened. But at least we got him home to be with his parents, where they were so happy to see him, even though he was in very tough condition.”
Mr Warmbier was on college break from the University of Virginia when he embarked on a short break.
He was detained by North Korean police and admitted to trying to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel room.
He was sentenced to 15 years hard labour and there was no information or contact with him for more than a year.
Last week, he was medically evacuated and returned to the US in a coma, with severe brain damage.