Trump slams North Korea after US student’s death

Trump slams North Korea after US student’s death

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Editorial Staff in Asia, US

US President Donald Trump. Photo: AP

CHICAGO,— President Donald Trump slammed the “brutal regime” in Pyongyang following the death of Otto Warmbier, the US student released in a coma last week after nearly 18 months in detention in North Korea.

The 22-year-old was medically evacuated to the United States last Tuesday, suffering from severe brain damage. He died six days later surrounded by relatives in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.

“The awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible,” the family said in a statement Monday announcing Warmbier’s death.

Warmbier was on a tourist trip when he was arrested and sentenced in March last year to 15 years hard labor for stealing a political poster from a North Korean hotel, a punishment US officials decried as out of proportion to his alleged crime.

Trump condemned Pyongyang following news of his death.

“It’s a brutal regime,” he said during a White House event. “Bad things happened but at least we got him home to his parents.”

He then added with no explanation: “We’ll be able to handle it.”

In a separate written statement, Trump said, “Otto’s fate deepens my Administration’s determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.”

“The United States once again condemns the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim.”

Added Secretary of State Rex Tillerson:”We hold North Korea accountable for Otto Warmbier’s unjust imprisonment, and demand the release of three other Americans who have been illegally detained.”

Ex-Vietnam war POW Senator John McCain said in a statement that Warmbier “was murdered by the Kim Jong-Un regime,” and added that the United States “cannot and should not tolerate the murder of its citizens by hostile powers.”

On Twitter, Republican Senator Marco Rubio wrote that Warmbier “should never have been in jail for tearing down a stupid banner. And he most certainly should not have been murdered for it.”

Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary who spent almost two years in a North Korean prison before he was released in November 2014, asked people to pray for Warmbier’s family.

“For Otto to be returned to the US in the state he was in – and then for him to die because of it – is not only an outrage, but it is a tragedy for his entire family,” Bae said in a statement.

“This did not have to happen and should never happen again.”

‘At peace’

Doctors last week said that Warmbier had suffered severe neurological injuries, and described him as being in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness,” opening his eyes and blinking, but showing no signs of understanding language or of being aware of his surroundings.

His family said Monday that he first appeared anguished when he first arrived home, but died “at peace.”

Kim Jong-Un’s regime claimed Warmbier fell into a coma soon after he was sentenced last year, and that he had contracted botulism and been given a sleeping pill.

Tests carried out in the United States offered no conclusive evidence as to the cause of his neurological injuries, and no evidence of a botulism infection. Warmbier’s doctors said he had suffered extensive tissue loss in all regions of his brain, but showed no signs of physical trauma.

They said that Warmbier’s brain injury was probably caused by cardiopulmonary arrest cutting the blood supply to the brain.

‘No excuse’

Warmbier’s release came amid mounting tensions with Washington following a series of missile tests by Pyongyang, an arms buildup that Pentagon chief Jim Mattis has dubbed “a clear and present danger to all.”

His death also brought attention to North Korea’s human rights record.

The Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea tied Warmbier’s fate to “millions of unknown North Koreans” who are “starved, tortured, brutalized and killed in North Korea’s political prison camps.”

Warmbier’s family said they believed the student had found peace after being flown home.

“When Otto returned to Cincinnati late on June 13th he was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands. He looked very uncomfortable — almost anguished,” they said.

“Although we would never hear his voice again, within a day the countenance of his face changed — he was at peace. He was home and we believe he could sense that,” they added.

Three more US citizens are currently being held by North Korea. Two were teachers at a Pyongyang university funded by overseas Christian groups, and the third a Korean-American pastor who was accused of espionage for the South.

Following Warmbier’s death, the tour group that arranged his trip to North Korea said it would no longer take Americans into the isolated country.

“The devastating loss of Otto Warmbier’s life has led us to reconsider our position on accepting American tourists. There had not been any previous detainment in North Korea that has ended with such tragic finality and we have been struggling to process the result,” China-based Young Pioneer Tours said in a statement.

“Now, the assessment of risk for Americans visiting North Korea has become too high. The way his detention was handled was appalling, and a tragedy like this must never be repeated,” it said.

http://ekurd.net/trump-slams-korea-student-2017-06-20

U.S. student held prisoner by North Korea dies days after release

Posted on June 20, 2017
CINCINNATI, Ohio,— An American university student who had been held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months died at a Cincinnati hospital on Monday, just days after he was released from captivity in a coma, his parent said.

Otto Warmbier, 22, who was arrested in North Korea while visiting as a tourist, had been described by doctors caring for him last week as having extensive brain damage that left him in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness.”

“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’s death at 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT).

His family has said that Warmbier lapsed into a coma in March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea.

Physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he died, said last Thursday that Warmbier showed no sign of understanding language or awareness of his surroundings, and had made no “purposeful movements or behaviors,” though he was breathing on his own.

There was no immediate word from Warmbier’s family on the cause of his death.

The circumstances of his detention in North Korea and what medical treatment he may have received there remained a mystery, but relatives have said his condition suggested that he had been physically abused by his captors.

The University of Virginia student and Ohio native was arrested, according to North Korean media, for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan.

North Korea released Warmbier last week and said he was being freed “on humanitarian grounds.”

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not available for comment on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement offering condolences to the Warmbier family and denouncing “the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim.”

The president drew criticism in May when he said he would be “honored” to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said in the interview. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”

The student’s father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that his son had been “brutalized and terrorized 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.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been heightened by dozens of North Korean missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since the beginning of last year. Pyongyang has also vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States holds North Korea accountable for Warmbier’s “unjust imprisonment” and demanded the release of three other U.S. citizens still held by Pyongyang – Korean-Americans Tony Kim, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Hak Song.

Jonathan Bae, whose father, Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae spent two years in North Korean captivity before his release in 2014, expressed sadness at Warmbier’s death.

“My heart goes out to the family. I will pray for them and hope they find peace,” Jonathan Bae said.

Young Pioneer Tours, the group with which Warmbier traveled to North Korea, will no longer be organizing tours for U.S. citizens to the isolated country, Troy Collings, a company director, said in a statement.

http://ekurd.net/us-student-korea-dies-2017-06-20