US student Otto Warmbier released from North Korea dies
US student Otto Warmbier who was held in North Korean captivity for 15 months has died a week after returning home.
22 year old Otto Warmbier, had been serving 15 years of hard labour for trying to steal a propaganda sign from a hotel in North Korea.
Last Tuesday, 13th June 2017, Mr Warmbier had been sent home on humanitarian grounds. On receiving Mr Warmbier it had emerged that he had been in coma for a year.
North Korea had claimed that Mr Warmbier had contracted botulism, however his family had claimed that North Korea had subjected him to “awful torturous mistreatment” in detention. Furthermore a team of US doctors has also disputed North Korea’s version of the events.
Mr Warmbier had suffered severe brain damage and he was medically evacuated from North Korea on 13th June 2017 to a hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is also his home city. So far it is not clear how Mr Warmbier well ill.
On Monday a statement from Mr Warmbeir’s family read “It is our sad duty to report that our son, Otto Warmbier, has completed his journey home. Surrounded by his loving family, Otto died today at 2:20pm.”
The family said that Otto Warmbier had been “unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands.”
“The awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today.”
Mr Warmbier had travelled to North Korea as a tourist.
A month after his arrest, Mr Warmbier had appeared at a news conference tearfully confessing to trying to take a sign from his hotel as a “trophy” for a US church.
He had said “The aim of my task was to harm the motivation and work ethic of the Korean people.”
Foreign detainees in North Korea have previously recanted confessions, saying they had been made under pressure.
China based company Young Pioneer Tours, which is the company Mr Warmbier had travelled with has announced that it will no longer be taking visitors from the US to North Korea.
The company in a statement 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.”
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