North Korea releases United States student ‘on humanitarian grounds’
NORTH Korea released US student Otto Warmbier “on humanitarian grounds”, state media said yesterday, two days after he was evacuated from Pyongyang after falling into a coma while imprisoned in a labour camp.
The 22-year-old University of Virginia student from Cincinnati had spent more than a year in North Korean detention after being arrested for stealing a political poster from a hotel. His family have said he was “terrorised and brutalised” by Kim Jong-Un’s regime.
Warmbier’s release came after a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts between Washington and Pyongyang. — AFP