Koreans kidnapped and tortured our son, say grieving parents

AN AMERICAN student imprisoned in North Korea was returned to his family blind, deaf and howling incoherently on a stretcher, his parents said yesterday in their first interview since his death in June.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier’s son Otto, 22, had travelled to North Korea as a tourist in January 2016. He was arrested and accused of removing a propaganda poster from his hotel, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The student fell ill shortly after he was sentenced.

The North Koreans said that Mr Warmbier had contracted botulism, a bacterial infection, and had a violent response to a drug given to help him.

He was denied visits from Swedish embassy officials, acting on behalf of the US, and it was not until June that he was freed. “What we pictured, because we’re optimists, is that Otto would be asleep and maybe in a medically induced coma and ... our doctors here would work with him and he’d get the best care and love, [and] that he would come out of it,” said Mrs Warmbier.

Fred Warmbier continued: “We walked over to the plane, the engines are still humming, they had just landed. When we got halfway up the steps we heard this howling, involuntary, inhuman sound. We weren’t really certain what it was.”

Mrs Warmbier told Fox News that the howling sounded so terrible she ran off the plane. “Otto had a shaved head, he had a feeding tube coming out of his nose, he was staring blankly into space, jerking violently,” said Mr Warmbier.

“He was blind. He was deaf. As we looked at him and tried to comfort him it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”

Otto was taken to hospital, but died six days later.

Pyongyang denies torturing the student, but his parents said North Korea’s actions were “inexcusable”.

“We see North Korea claiming to be a victim and the world is picking on them, and we’re here to tell you North Korea is not a victim,” said Mr Warmbier. “They are terrorists. They kidnapped Otto, they tortured him, [and] they intentionally injured him.”

The State Department has since banned US citizens from travelling to North Korea.

President Donald Trump later posted on Twitter about the interview. “Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea,” he wrote.