Jailed US student released by North Korea ‘in coma’
Jailed US student released by North Korea ‘in coma’: North Korea has released US student Otto Warmbier from jail, however the students parents say he has been in a coma for a year.
On Tuesday, 13th June 2017, the 22 year old had been flown to the US and landed in Ohio.
Otto Warmbier’s family told the US media that they had only found out last week that their son has been in a coma since shortly after his trial in March 2016.
Mr Warmbier had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labour after he was accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster from a hotel.
Mr Otto on his arrival at Ohio was taken by an ambulance. Otto Warmbier is an economics student from the University of Virginia, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio.
The US student had been on tour in North Korea with Young pioneer tours when he was arrested in 2016. Afterwards Mr Warmbier had appeared emotional at a news conference a month later, in the press conference he had tearfully confessed to trying to take the sign as a “trophy” for a US church, adding: “The aim of my task was to harm the motivation and work ethic of the Korean people.”
Previously foreign detainees in North Korea have recanted confessions and said that they were made under pressure.
After a short trial in March 2016, Mr Warmbier had been given a prison sentence of 15 years of hard labour for his crimes against the North Korean state.
The parents of Mr Warmbier said that they had no contact with him for more than a year.
On Tuesday, 13th June 2017, Mr and Mrs Warmbier in a statement about the condition of Mr Otto Warmbier said that: “Sadly, he is in a coma and we have been told he has been in that condition since March 2016. We learned of this only one week ago.”
A newspaper had quoted them as saying they had been told Otto had contracted botulism, a rare illness that causes paralysis, soon after his trial in March 2016.
According to the report Mr Warmbier had been given a sleeping pill and had been in a coma ever since.
The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made no mention of Mr Warmbier’s condition in a statement saying only that he was on his way home to be reunited with his family and would not make any further comment, out of respect for the privacy of the family.
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