Student in coma set free by North Koreans
AN AMERICAN student serving a 15-year prison term in North Korea for alleged anti-state acts has been released after lying in a coma for the past year.
Otto Warmbier is believed to be on a flight heading back to the US. His parents Fred and Cindy Warmbier only learned of his coma one week ago and accused the regime of brutalising their son, who was jailed last March,
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: “At the direction of the President, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea. Mr Warmbier is en route to the US where he will be reunited with his family.”
The statement offered no other details and initially made no mention of his coma. It also made no mention of the role of former basketball player Dennis Rodman’s visit to Pyongyang.
On this private trip, Rodman has already been roundly criticised by some for visiting during a time of high tensions between the US and North Korea over its weapons programmes and recent missile launches.
“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s pretty much happy with the fact that I’m over here trying to accomplish something that we both need,” Rodman said in Beijing when asked if Mr Trump was aware of the trip.
In March 2016, North Korea’s highest court sentenced Mr Warmbier to 15 years in prison with hard labour for subversion as he tearfully confessed that he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.
Mr Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia undergraduate, was convicted and sentenced in a one-hour trial in North Korea’s Supreme Court.
The US government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns.
North Korea announced Mr Warmbier’s arrest in late January 2016, saying he committed an anti-state crime with “the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation.”
Mr Warmbier had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel. It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.
In a tearful statement made before his trial, Mr Warmbier told reporters in Pyongyang he was offered a used car worth $10,000 if he could get a propaganda banner and told that if he was detained and did not return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in the form of a charitable donation.
He accepted the offer because his family was “suffering from very severe financial difficulties”.
Before his trial, Mr Warmbier had said he tried to steal the propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in the Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming.
Mr Warmbier also said he had been encouraged by the university’s “Z Society”, a semi-secret “ring society” which he said he was trying to join.