N.Korea accuses ‘old lunatic’ Trump of exploiting Warmbier death

North Korea on Thursday accused US President Donald Trump of exploiting Otto Warmbier’s death, calling him an “old lunatic” for alleging that the American student was tortured while in Pyongyang’s custody.

In a statement issued by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea’s foreign ministry attacked the US for “luring and pushing” the 22-year-old student into breaking the country’s laws.

“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 labor for the criminal act he committed against the DPRK and died after returning to the US,” it said, using the acronym for the North’s official name.

Warmbier, who was visiting the North as a tourist in January 2016 when he was arrested and imprisoned by the regime, died in June this year, just days after he was released from custody and sent home in a mysterious coma.

In the statement, the North accused “an anti-DPRK conspiracy organization in the US” of sending Warmbier to the country on a criminal “mission.”

“The fact that the old lunatic Trump and his riff-raff 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 towards the US and their will to retaliate thousand-fold,” it said.

The statement came after a US medical examiner said Warmbier had shown no obvious signs of torture despite assertions by his parents and Trump.

His parents, in a series of American television interviews Tuesday, said their son showed signs of torture, including teeth that appeared to have been “rearranged,” and hands and feet that were disfigured.

“They kidnapped Otto, they tortured him, they intentionally injured him. They are not victims, they are terrorists,” Fred Warmbier said on the program “Fox and Friends.”