Student freed by North Korea has severe neurological injury

WYOMING, OHIO » An American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea and returned to his home state of Ohio in a coma suffered a “severe neurological injury,” a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday.

Otto Warmbier is in stable condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center with his mother by his side, hospital spokeswoman Kelly Martin said. Doctors planned an update later Thursday.

His father, Fred Warmbier, said he does not believe North Korea’s explanation that the coma resulted from botulism and a sleeping pill. He said there was no reason for North Korea to keep his 22-year-old son’s condition a secret and deny him top medical care.

Fred Warmbier called his son’s return bittersweet.

“Relief that Otto is now home in the arms of those who love him and anger that he was so brutally treated for so long,” he said at a news conference at Wyoming High School, where Warmbier graduated in 2013 as class salutatorian and played soccer. Blueand-white ribbons in the school’s colors were tied around the trees and utility poles all the way along the city’s main road in a show of support.

To honor his son, Fred Warmbier wore the same jacket Otto wore when North Korea presented him before the media in March 2016 at an event where he tearfully confessed that he tried to steal a propaganda banner while visiting the country.

Fred Warmbier said that he doesn’t know why North Korea released his son but that the country doesn’t do anything out of “the kindness of their hearts.” He called on the country to release other Americans currently held there.

“There’s no excuse for the way the North Koreans treated our son,” he said.

Warmbier also accused North Korea of luring Americans to the country with a Chinese tour company making the false promise they will never be detained.