N Korea blasts Trump over Warmbier

NORTH Korea has accused “old lunatic” Donald Trump of exploiting the death of Otto Warmbier, the American student who mysteriously died after being jailed in the hermit kingdom.

While the US president and Warmbier’s parents claimed the 22-year-old was tortured while in Pyongyang’s custody, a US coroner yesterday said there was no evidence of that.

“Trump and his clique, for their anti-DPRK propaganda, are again exploiting the death of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who had been under reform through labour for the criminal act he committed against the DPRK and died after returning to the US,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said, using the acronym for the North’s official name.

They also accused “an antiDPRK conspiracy organisation in the US” of sending Warmbier to the country on a criminal “mission”.

“The fact that the old luna- tic Trump and his riffraff slandered the sacred dignity of our supreme leadership, using bogus data full of falsehood and fabrications, only serves to redouble the surging hatred of our army and people toward the US and their will to retaliate thousandfold,” it said.

Warmbier was visiting the North as a tourist in January 2016 when he was arrested for trying to take a propaganda sign from his hotel, and sen- tenced to 15 years of hard labour.

North Korea released the University of Virginia student from custody on June 15. He returned to the US in a mysterious coma and died a few days later.

His parents said their son showed signs of torture, including teeth that appeared to have been “rearranged” with a pair of pliers, and hands and feet that were disfigured. AFP