N. KOREA OWES $500M IN DEATH

WASHINGTON A federal judge ordered North Korea to pay more than $500 million on Monday in a wrongful-death suit filed by the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died shortly after being released from that country.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington ruled North Korea should pay damages to Fred and Cindy Warmbier, the parents of the University of Virginia student.

Warmbier was visiting North Korea with a tour group when he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in March 2016 on suspicion of stealing a propaganda poster. He died in June 2017, shortly after he returned to the U.S. in a coma and showing apparent signs of torture while in custody.

The judgment is largely a symbolic victory for now, since there is no mechanism to force North Korea to pay.