Nkorea coma student’s father condemns Obama inaction

THE father of an American student who was evacuated from North Korea in a coma has criticised the Obama administration for not doing enough to help him, and accused a Chinese tour company of “luring young Americans” to be imprisoned by the pariah state.

Fred Warmbier’s son Otto, 22, was sentenced to 15 years hard labour in March last year for allegedly taking a poster of Kim Jong-il off a wall as a souvenir. He was in North Korea on a visit organised by Young Pioneer Tours.

The Warmbier family were told last week that their son had been in a coma since shortly after his trial.

The North Koreans said Otto had botulism, and failed to recover from a sleeping pill. He is being treated in a hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, where last night doctors described him as being in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”.

He appears unable to speak, does not respond to verbal commands and appears unaware of his surroundings.

The North Koreans provided two brain scans which the medical team believe show he has been in a coma for over a year. They have not found any evidence of botulism.

Mr Warmbier said the family was advised not to speak out for fear of angering Pyongyang and that his meetings with John Kerry, the secretary of state at the time, had achieved little.