U.S. student Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months before being returned home in a coma less than a week ago, has died in a Cincinnati hospital, his family said in a statement on Monday.
“Unfortunately, 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,” the family said in a statement after Warmbier died at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
His family said the 22-year-old, a student of the University of Virginia, had lapsed into a coma in March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in North Korea.
Otto Warmbier
He was arrested, according to North Korean media, for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan.
North Korea released Warmbier last week, saying he was being freed “on humanitarian grounds.”
His father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that his son had been “brutalised and terrorised” by the Pyongyang government” and that the family disbelieved North Korea’s story that his son had fallen into a coma after contracting botulism and being given a sleeping pill.
Doctors who examined Otto Warmbier after his release said there was no sign of botulism in his system.
Warmbier was freed after the U.S. State Department’s special envoy on North Korea, Joseph Yun traveled to Pyongyang and demanded the student’s release on humanitarian grounds, capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official said last week.
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