Parents of U.S. student freed by North Korea will speak out Thursday Hannah Sparling
After spending more than a year imprisoned in North Korea, American college student Otto Warmbier landed Tuesday night in Cincinnati.
The 22 year old from suburban Wyoming, Ohio, reportedly has been in a coma since March 2016.
The University of Virginia student was serving a 15-year sentence after he was accused of “anti-state” acts.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Warmbier’s release Tuesday. He said the State Department secured Warmbier’s release at the direction of President Trump.
Warmbier’s family plans to hold a news conference Thursday morning.
What you should know about him:
Warmbier was salutatorian at Wyoming High School, where he graduated in 2013. A prom king and homecoming king at the top-ranked suburban Cincinnati school, he was described by his soccer coach as a gifted, smart player and a leader on and off the field.
He was a student at the University of Virginia when he visited North Korea with a tour group.
At the University of Vir-
ginia, Warmbier was a top
student with a “prestigious academic scholarship intended for the most intellectually curious,” according to The Washington
Post. He was known as a sports fan, rap lyric aficionado and a deep thinker, the story noted. He “would challenge himself and others to question their place in the world” and was “an insatiably curious person with a strong work ethic and a delight in the ridiculous.”
Warmbier went to North Korea with Young Pioneer Tours, a China-based tour company. He was arrested Jan. 2, 2016, in Pyongyang, the nation’s capital.
Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after he was accused of stealing a poster from a staff-only section of a hotel in North Korea. In a televised statement in March 2016, he apologized and said he was impressed by the country’s “fair and square legal procedures” and its “humanitarian treatment of severe criminals like myself.”
Warmbier’s family heard from him only once during his 18-month imprisonment, in a letter dated March 2. In a statement to the Associated Press and other media outlets this week, his parents, Cindy and Fred Warmbier, said their family has been “brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime in North Korea.”