US student dies after release from N. Korea
> Trump decries ‘brutal’ Pyongyang regime
WASHINGTON: Otto Warmbier, the US student released in a coma last week after nearly 18 months in detention in North Korea, died on Monday, prompting President Donald Trump to slam the “brutal regime” in Pyongyang.
The 22-year-old was medically evacuated to the US last Tuesday, suffering from severe brain damage. He died six days later surrounded by relatives in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
“The awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible,” the family said in a statement announcing the death.
Warmbier was on a tourist trip when he was arrested and sentenced in March last year to 15 years hard labour for stealing a political poster from a North Korean hotel, a punishment US officials decried as far out of proportion to his alleged crime.
Trump slammed Pyongyang following news of Warmbier’s death.
“It’s a brutal regime. Bad things happened but at least we got him home to his parents,” he said during a White House event.
“Otto’s fate deepens my administration’s determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency,” he later said in a separate written statement.
“We hold North Korea accountable for Warmbier’s unjust imprisonment, and demand the release of three other Americans who have been illegally detained,” secretary of state Rex Tillerson said.
Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary who spent almost two years in a North Korean prison before he was released in November 2014, issued a statement asking people to pray for Warmbier’s family.
“For Otto to be returned to the US in the state he was in – and then for him to die because of it – is not only an outrage, but it is a tragedy for his entire family.
“This did not have to happen and should never happen again.”
Doctors last week revealed that Warmbier had suffered severe neurological injuries, and described him as being in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”, opening his eyes and blinking, but showing no signs of understanding language or of being aware of his surroundings.
His family said on Monday that he first appeared anguished when he first arrived home, but died “at peace”.
Kim Jong-Un’s regime claimed Warmbier fell into a coma soon after he was sentenced last year, saying the college student had contracted botulism and been given a sleeping pill.
Medical tests carried out last week in the US offered no conclusive evidence as to the cause of his neurological injuries, and no evidence of a prior botulism infection.
Warmbier’s doctors said he had suffered extensive tissue loss in all regions of his brain, but showed no signs of physical trauma.
They said given his age, Warmbier’s severe brain injury was most likely caused by cardiopulmonary arrest cutting the blood supply to the brain. – AFP