Do you remember the U.S student who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour last year for trying to steal a propaganda poster from a hotel in North Korea?
Well that story has taken an even more bizarre and devastating turn.
Otto Warmbier is finally being released, but it’s a medical evacuation. The 22-year-old has been in a coma “for over a year now and urgently needs proper medical care”.
“We want the world to know how we and our son have been brutalised and terrorised by the pariah regime [in North Korea]”, Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement to The Associated Press.
They also expressed their relief that their son would “finally be with people who love him.”
Otto Warmbier was arrested for trying to steal a propaganda poster.
A senior American official told 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.
Mr Warmbier had not been seen in public since his show trial in March 2016.
“Otto has left North Korea. He is on a Medivac flight on his way home,” his parents said in a statement.
“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.”
Fred and Cindy Warmbier also said they were told by North Korean officials Mr Warmbier had contracted botulism, a rare illness causing paralysis, after his trial.
He was apparently given a sleeping pill and had been in a coma ever since, but those claims are yet to be independently verified.
Mr Warmbier’s release was announced while Dennis Rodman – President Trump and Kim Jong-un’s only mutual “friend” – was visiting North Korea.
The former professional basketball player appeared on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice show for two seasons and has serenaded the North Korean leader from the basketball court on previous visits to the country.
This has obviously led to intense speculation the former Chicago Bulls star’s fifth visit to North Korea is purely to free the three US citizens in custody in North Korea.
However a State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, said Tuesday: “Dennis Rodman did not have anything to do with the release of Otto Warmbier.”
More as we get it.
