Family says U.S. college student released by North Korea is in coma
WASHINGTON — Otto Warmbier, an American college student serving a 15-year prison term in North Korea for alleged anti-state acts, was released and medically evacuated from the reclusive country Tuesday and has been in a coma for months, his parents said.
The announcement on Warmbier’s release came as former NBA player Dennis Rodman was paying a return visit to Pyongyang. Rodman is one of few people to have met both North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump. But Rodman said the issue of several Americans detained by North Korea is “not my purpose right now.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the State Department had secured Warmbier’s release at the direction of the president. He said Warmbier, 22, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was en route to the U.S., where he will be reunited with his family. Tillerson made no mention of Rodman’s visit, and said the department would have no further comment on Warmbier and his condition, citing privacy concerns.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement to The Associated Press that their son is in a coma and flying home. They said they have been told their son has been in a coma since March 2016 — when he was last seen in public, at his trial when he was sentenced to hard labor — and they had learned of this only one week ago.
“We want the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime” in North Korea, they said. “We are so grateful that he will finally be with people who love him.”
A North Korean foreign ministry official said Warmbier was released and left the country Tuesday morning. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal statement had been released. It was not immediately clear if Rodman’s visit to North Korea was purely coincidental with Warmbier’s release. Rodman has traveled to the isolated nation four times previously. It is, however, his first trip since Trump, his former “Celebrity Apprentice” boss, became president. He told reporters in Beijing, as he departed for Pyongyang, he hopes his trip will “open a door” for Trump.
The Trump administration sought to dampen speculation about Rodman’s role by sharing details of its diplomatic efforts to win consular access and freedom for Americans held in Pyongyang. Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy on North Korea, met with North Korean foreign ministry representatives in Norway last month, a White House official said. Such direct consultations between the two governments are rare as they do not have formal diplomatic relations.
At the meeting, North Korea agreed Swedish diplomats could visit all four American detainees, which at that time included Warmbier. Yun then met last week with the North Korean ambassador at the U.N. in New York, where Yun learned about Warmbier’s condition. Yun was then dispatched to North Korea and visited Warmbier with two doctors Monday, and demanded his release on humanitarian grounds.
The White House official was not authorized to speak on the record about the sequence of events and requested anonymity.
Tillerson said the State Department is continuing “to have discussions” with North Korea about the release of three other American citizens jailed there.
Warmbier, a University of Virginia undergraduate, was convicted and sentenced in a one-hour trial in North Korea’s Supreme Court in March 2016. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion as he tearfully confessed he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.