Otto ‘was tortured’

Trump castigates North Korea for treatment of US student

DONALD Trump has accused North Korea of “torturing beyond belief” an American student held captive there and who died soon after his release back in the US.

The US president had previously blamed Pyongyang’s “brutal regime” for the plight of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier, but never before accused the regime of torture.

US officials have said Mr Trump was personally shaken when Warmbier died in June a few days after he was sent home in a mysterious coma following 18 months in a North Korean prison.

“Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea,” Mr Trump said on Twitter after an interview with Warmbier’s parents, Cindy and Fred, was aired on Fox News.

The couple said their son was blind, deaf and had mangled teeth when he returned to the US.

“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,” Mr Warmbier said.

“Otto had a shaved head, he had a feeding tube coming out of his nose, he was staring blankly into space, jerking violently ... 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.”

The Warmbiers said their son spent his last days jerking and moaning, with a 40C fever.

The University of Virginia student was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years hard labour in North Korea after he was accused of stealing a propaganda poster from a hotel he was staying at. North Korean officials said he had contracted botulism. US doctors found no evidence of that.

Mr Trump also said he was prepared to launch a military attack on North Korea, and slammed dictator Kim Jongun for taunting him.