Otto Warmbier, US student flown home from North Korean jail in coma, dies aged 22

OTTO WARMBIER, an American student who fell into a coma while imprisoned in a North Korean labour camp, has died.

Mr Warmbier, 22, returned to the United States a week ago on a military aircraft after Pyongyang allowed him to be flown home. He had been 17 months into a 15-year sentence, after being convicted of subversion when he confessed to the attempted theft of a propaganda banner.

The University of Virginia student suffered severe brain damage while being held in North Korea but it was not clear what caused it. In a statement his parents Fred and Cindy said he died surrounded by family in Cincinnati.

They said: “Unfortunately, the awful, torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today. When Otto returned to Cincinnati late on June 13 he was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands. He looked very uncomfortable, almost anguished.

“Although we would never hear his voice again, within a day the countenance of his face changed. He was at peace. He was home and we believe he could sense that.” His death came amid growing tension between Washington and Pyongyang following a series of missile tests by Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Last week Mr Warmbier’s family said they had been told he was given a sleeping pill following his trial in March 2016 and had never woken up.

They said he had been “brutalised and terrorised by the pariah regime in North Korea”. Three Americans remain detained in North Korea and the US as accused the regime of using detainees as political pawns. In a written statement, Donald Trump said: “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.”