The parents of Otto Warmbier, the US student who was detained in North Korea for more than year and died shortly after he was released and flown home, have given their first television interview to Fox News.
Otto was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for trying to steal a propaganda poster from a hotel in North Korea.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier described the moment they saw their son after he landed back in America on an air ambulance and it’s an extremely distressing account.
Mr Warmbier recalls: “We walked up the steps and when we got halfway up the steps we heard this howling, involuntary, inhuman sound. We weren’t really certain what it was.”
Otto Warmbier was arrested for trying to steal a propaganda poster.
He said that Otto, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, was blind and deaf with his head shaved and was “staring blankly into space jerking violently”.
Mr Wambier said Otto’s mouth “looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth”.
He also revealed Otto’s mother and sister initially ran off the medical plane when they saw him.
Warmbier’s parents have blamed his death on the “torturous mistreatment” he had received at the hands of the North Koreans.
The Warmbiers now want North Korea listed as a state sponsor of terrorism:
“They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims,” they said.
Otto was medically evacuated from the reclusive country to Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 13 after more than 17 months in detention. He was immediately transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in a state of unresponsive wakefulness.
North Korea told a US official that Warmbier contracted botulism and slipped into the coma after taking a sleeping pill, however a team of US doctors who assessed him dispute this account.
Additionally, a senior American official told the New York Times they obtained intelligence reports in recent weeks indicating the student had been repeatedly beaten while in North Korea and they had feared he was dead.
The student’s family only discovered his medical situation in the days leading up to his release.
