NORTH KOREA’S LATEST VICTIM
Former captives of the pariah state have spoken about the brutal conditions they faced but will the truth about Otto Warmbier ever come out?
THE homepage of the Young Pioneer Tours website is undeniably exciting. Under a picture of two stony-faced soldiers the text reads: “Specialising in North Korea tours we provide ‘budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from’.” The self-styled “adventure travel company” goes on to boast: “All our tours are founded on the YPT ethos of fun, thrill seeking and adventure at a great price.”
But it was on one such trip to North Korean capital Pyongyang that Otto Warmbier, a 22-yearold American student, found himself arrested, forced to confess to “crimes against the state” and sentenced to 15 years hard labour – all for the supposed theft of a poster from his hotel on New Year’s Eve 2015. This month he returned to the US in a coma. On Monday he died.
North Korean officials claim he fell ill after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill but doctors in America have poured scorn on that theory.
Daniel Kanter, director of neurocritical care at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where Otto was treated after his release, said there was no evidence of botulism but that Otto had suffered extensive brain damage. He stated: “This pattern of brain injury is usually seen as a result of cardiopulmonary arrest where the blood supply to the brain is inadequate for a period of time resulting in the death of brain tissue.”
Otto’s father Fred Warmbier has said that his son died after being subjected to “awful torturous mistreatment” by the North Korean government. US senator John McCain was even more unequivocal saying Otto was “tortured and murdered” by the state. President Donald Trump described it as a “total disgrace”.
In a statement after Otto’s death Young Pioneer Tours said: “The way his detention was handled was appalling and a tragedy like this must never be repeated. Despite constant requests we were denied any opportunity to meet him or anyone in contact with him in Pyongyang, only receiving assurances that he was fine.”
The company has also said that it would no longer be taking Americans to North Korea.
One of Otto’s fellow travellers believes the student was detained simply because of his nationality. Danny Gratton, a sales manager from Stone in Staffordshire, shared a room with Otto on the three-day trip and described how he had been targeted by guards at the airport on January 2, 2016. “We were the GRIEVING: Parents Fred and Cindy say Otto was tortured last two people to go through passport control,” he said. “We handed over our passports and the guy pointed at Otto and pointed to the door. Two security guards came over and ushered him away. I made an ironic comment. I actually said, ‘Well, we won’t be seeing you again.’ He sort of laughed at me and that was the last we saw of him. They made the decision to take an American.”
Two months later Otto made his “confession” and according to reports the following day he fell into a coma.
WHILE the truth about what happened to Otto may never be known, other Westerners who have found themselves imprisoned have spoken of the horror of life in North Korean prisons. Kenneth Bae, a 47-year-old missionary from Washington State, was arrested in 2012 while leading an officially permitted tour from China and described how he was interrogated for up to 15 hours a day for four weeks until he wrote a confession in which he described himself as a terrorist who plotted to overthrow the government. He too was sentenced to 15 years hard labour but after being hospitalised three times for diabetes, heart problems and back pain was freed in 2014. Another former prisoner, teacher Aijalon Gomes, 38, from Massachusetts, was detained trying to cross the border from China in 2010, convicted of “espionage” and sentenced to eight years in prison.
He described how he was kept in “a cement cell, which was beyond freezing”, forced to make bricks all day and eventually attempted suicide by slashing his wrists before his release in 2015.
Perhaps the worst case of abuse prior to Otto was that suffered by Robert Park, a 36-year-old missionary from Arizona. He claims that after being detained at the border in 2009 he was horrifically beaten, including blows to his genitals with a club “to make me not to have a baby and get married for ever”.
He has attempted suicide twice since his release and said: “North Korea would not have released me if they thought that I could recover.”
According to Robert King, a former special envoy for North Korea human rights issues who handled Otto’s case, whatever abuse Western prisoners may suffer, the regime is keen to avoid any actual deaths in prison.
“This situation with Warmbier is likely something that happened that they did not intend,” he said. “They don’t want anyone to die on their watch. This is why the Warmbier case is unusual.”
Whatever happened to Otto in those 17 months in captivity, for Danny Gratton, North Korea’s treatment of a bright, promising 22-year-old leaves the regime with blood on its hands.
“No one deserves that,” he says. “He was just a young lad who wanted a bit of adventure. Every once in a while they single out someone to make a point and this was just Otto’s turn. It’s so sick and warped and unnecessary and evil.”