A US college student who was released by North Korea in a coma has died.

His family said in a statement released by a hospital in Ohio that Mr Warmbier died on Monday afternoon.

The family thanked the University of Cincinnati Medical Centre for treating him but said: "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."

Mr Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labour in North Korea, convicted of subversion after he tearfully confessed he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.

The University of Virginia student was held for more than 17 months and medically evacuated from North Korea last week.

Doctors said he returned with severe brain damage, but it was not clear what caused it.</s>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, its carefully scripted propaganda bluster, even its military threats: Far from the scattershot workings of a madman, most of this fits the playbook of a small, proud country well used to stoking tensions to get concessions it would otherwise not receive from surrounding big powers.

What happened to Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died just days after North Korea released him from detention in a coma, is far more difficult to make sense of.

It jars so strikingly with the fates of most past detained Americans that outside observers are left struggling not only with the mystery of what killed Warmbier but also with what his death means for attempts by Washington and its allies to stop North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear-tipped ICBM that can target the U.S. mainland.

“The treatment of Otto Warmbier is beyond the pale of North Korea’s usual standards,” said John Delury, an Asia expert at Seoul’s Yonsei University. “It’s worth a forceful response. The U.S. government should not just throw up its hands and say, ‘This is just how North Korea is.’ But how do you do that in a smart way where there is some modicum of accountability?”

What follows is a closer examination of one of the more perplexing and heart-rending developments in North Korea’s long, antagonistic standoff with its neighbors and Washington.

It may never be known, but there are some clues — as well as widespread speculation.

The University of Virginia student was medically evacuated from North Korea last week, more than a year after a court sentenced him to 15 years in prison with hard labor for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda banner.

Early this month, North Korean diplomats at the United Nations urgently requested a face-to-face meeting with U.S. officials in New York. During the meeting, Washington learned of Warmbier’s condition.

His family said it was told he fell into a coma soon after his March 2016 sentencing after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill. Doctors in Cincinnati said they found no active sign of botulism or evidence of beatings. They say he had severe brain damage but they don’t know what caused it.

Some observers believe that North Korea became worried because Warmbier’s condition suddenly worsened.

“North Korea sent him back to the United States before he died because more questions would have been raised about his death and the situation would have gotten worse if it had returned his dead body,” said Cheong Seong-jang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea.

Others believe it is unlikely that North Korea intentionally harmed Warmbier because he was valuable as a political pawn. Poor hygienic conditions, diet or bad medical care may have been responsible for a coma that North Korean doctors couldn’t handle.

Or maybe North Korea concealed his medical condition for so long in the hopes that he’d recover.

WHAT DOES IT SHOW ABOUT NORTH KOREA’S INNER WORKINGS?

Some outside experts see an internal divide in North Korea between officials who believe solving the long standoff with Seoul and Washington is the best way to improve the country’s economy and international standing, and hard-liners who believe that outside pressure, isolation and animosity help keep the ruling Kim family in power by solidifying domestic support.

The last thing conservatives want, the argument goes, is curious American tourists talking with citizens and undercutting decades of propaganda that assures North Koreans that they are the envy of the world.

But North Korea has also consistently lobbied Washington for specific concessions that would need deep negotiations, something recent U.S. administrations have been reluctant to pursue because of the North’s weapons programs. North Korea’s demands include a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War and the removal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula.

“I’m sure there are high-ranking North Koreans who regret what happened to Warmbier and who think this was a mistake,” Delury said. “You’ve got to capitalize on this, and influence their internal debates to get them to recognize and acknowledge what happened.”

Another reading is that Warmbier’s death may simply show a pattern of North Korean callousness and a lack of concern over diplomatic repercussions. Outside groups say North Korea tortures thousands of its own citizens at prison camps. And earlier this year the North was suspected of arranging the killing of the half-brother of leader Kim Jong Un with VX nerve agent at a Malaysian airport.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR DIPLOMACY?

Outrage in the United States means that more pressure, not dialogue, is the more likely course. But some analysts believe negotiations could happen because of U.S. worries about the safety of the three other Americans still detained in North Korea.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has been unable to pursue the engagement with the North he favors because of a string of North Korean missile tests. Warmbier’s death could make it even harder, although some analysts think Moon could offer talks with the North as a way to get other detainees out of North Korea.

“It’s unlikely that Washington and Seoul will let Warmbier’s death entirely derail their efforts at talks because North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is such a serious and immediate threat,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University. Still, opponents will question whether such negotiations may give the North more time to expand its nuclear weapons program.

Delury said the Trump administration may try to pressure China to cut its large numbers of tourists to North Korea until the North apologizes and releases the other Americans.

Whether North Korea will actually respond to pressure or talks is unclear. The country may not worry about much of anything externally, even the death of a young tourist, until it reaches its goal of building a nuclear ICBM that can ease what it sees as decades of U.S. and South Korean hostility.

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.</s>FILE - In this March 16, 2016, file photo, American student Otto Warmbier, center, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea. Warmbier, whose parents say has been in a coma while serving a 15-year prison term in North Korea, was released and returned to the United States Tuesday, June 13, 2017, as the Trump administration revealed a rare exchange with the reclusive country. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin, File)</s>I can't stop thinking about Otto Warmbier, who died Monday. And the more I think about him, the more I remember all the smart people I've heard over the years explaining why the North Korean regime — the regime that "brutalized and terrorized" Otto, as his father said last week — shouldn't be challenged or destabilized.

Warmbier was a smart and immensely likable kid who graduated from high school in 2013 in his hometown of Wyoming, Ohio, and enrolled in the University of Virginia. Toward the end of 2015 he was traveling in China when he signed up, out of curiosity and a sense of adventure, for a four-day New Year's trip to North Korea. As the rest of his tour group departed from Pyongyang International Airport on Jan. 2, 2016, Warmbier was detained.

Two months later he showed up on North Korean television confessing to his supposed offense: trying to pilfer a propaganda poster from his hotel to bring home as a souvenir. We don't know if the coerced confession was truthful or made up. Even if truthful, the resulting sentence of 15 years at hard labor was obscene.

Warmbier, who was 22, wasn't seen or heard from again until last week, when the Trump administration managed to secure his release and fly him home to Ohio. Only it turns out that Warmbier was incapacitated, and apparently had been for almost his entire time in captivity.

"His neurological condition can be best described as a state of unresponsive wakefulness," said Daniel Kanter, a University of Cincinnati Medical Center neurologist who examined Otto when he returned. "He shows no signs of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surroundings."

We don't know whether North Korean guards beat Warmbier into a coma or whether his abuse and maltreatment came in some other form. What we do know is that a healthy young man flew to Pyongyang, was unjustly seized and then became lost to the world — with no one bothering to inform his parents.

Here's something else we know: Thousands — no, hundreds of thousands — of Koreans have been subjected to similar criminal abuse as Otto Warmbier suffered at the hands of North Korea's Stalinist regime. In 2014, a U.N. commission reported that "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ...

"The use of torture is an established feature of the interrogation process in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," the U.N. commission found. "Starvation and other inhumane conditions of detention are deliberately imposed on suspects. ... Persons who are found to have engaged in major political crimes are 'disappeared,' without trial or judicial order, to political prison camps (kwanliso). ... Their families are not even informed of their fate if they die. ...

"The inmate population has been gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide. The commission estimates that hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished in these camps over the past five decades. The unspeakable atrocities that are being committed against inmates of the kwanliso political prison camps resemble the horrors of camps that totalitarian States established during the twentieth century."

Translation: The gulag of the Soviet Union, the concentration camps of Nazi Germany — they have been roughly replicated in North Korea. The whole world knows this — the U.N. report is a public document — and yet the regime lives on. How can that be?

It turns out that plenty of people find the regime repugnant but convenient. China's Communist rulers are first in that line: Kim Jong Un annoys them, but they do not want a unified, pro-Western Korea on their border. South Korea has a Ministry of Unification but also many citizens who do not want the responsibility or expense of bringing 25 million impoverished North Koreans up to their living standard (South Korea's population is about 50 million).

For its part, the United States is more interested in negotiating an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons program than helping its captive millions. "Our goal is not regime change," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in April.

And so, though the country is backward and totally dependent on outside assistance, the regime lives on. The prison camps endure.

Fred Hiatt writes for The Washington Post, where this first appeared.</s>June 20 (Reuters) - The Ohio coroner examining the death of a University of Virginia student who was held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months expects to share preliminary findings of the autopsy on Tuesday or Wednesday, her office said.

Otto Warmbier died at the age of 22 in a Cincinnati hospital on Monday, just days after the North Korean government sent him home in a coma and suffering from extensive brain damage, according to the U.S. doctors who treated him.

His body was transferred to the Hamilton County Coroner's office later that day, Don Jasper, its chief investigator, said on Tuesday. The coroner, Lakshmi Kode Sammarco, is expecting to release initial results from her examination later on Tuesday or on Wednesday, Jasper said.

Warmbier, who was born in Ohio, was arrested in North Korea in January 2016 while visiting as a tourist. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel in Pyongyang, the nation's state media said.

His family did not give a cause of his death but said in a statement on Monday that the "awful torturous mistreatment" Warmbier endured while in North Korean custody meant "no other outcome was possible."

Relatives have said U.S. envoys told them that North Korean officials said Warmbier contracted botulism after his trial and became comatose after taking a sleeping pill, according to the Washington Post. Fred Warmbier, the student's father, has said he does not believe this account.

North Korea said they released Warmbier last week on "humanitarian grounds."

U.S. President Donald Trump offered condolences to the Warmbier family on Monday and denounced "the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim." U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson repeated demands that North Korea release three other U.S. citizens it holds in detention: missionary Kim Dong Chul and academics Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song.

The government of China, North Korea's main ally, said Warmbier's death was a tragedy.

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 in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The North Korean government has vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.</s>CINCINNATI — Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was released by North Korea in a coma last week after more than a year in captivity, died Monday, his family said.

The 22-year-old “has completed his journey home,” the family said in a statement.

“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,” his parents said.

Doctors had described his condition as a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” and said he suffered a “severe neurological injury” of unknown cause.

His father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that he believed Otto had been fighting for months to stay alive to return to his family. Their statement Monday said he had looked uncomfortable and anguished after returning June 13, but his countenance later changed.

“He was peace. He was home, and we believe he could sense that,” they said.

Warmbier was convicted of subversion after he tearfully confessed that he had tried to steal a propaganda banner while visiting with a tour group from China. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in North Korea.

The University of Virginia student was held for more than 17 months. His family said last week they were told he had been a coma since soon after his March 2016 sentencing.

Doctors said he has suffered extensive loss of brain tissue and “profound weakness and contraction” of his muscles, arms and legs. His eyes opened and blinked, but without signs of understanding verbal commands or his surroundings.

North Korea said he went into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill. Doctors in Cincinnati said they found no active sign of botulism nor evidence of beatings.

His parents told The Associated Press in a statement the day of his release that they wanted “the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime ” and expressed relief he had been returned to “finally be with people who love him.”

Fred Warmbier praised his son’s “performance” and President Donald Trump’s administration. He was critical of former President Barack Obama’s approach to his son’s situation.

The younger Warmbier grew up in the northern Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming. He was salutatorian of his 2013 class at the highly rated high school, and was on the soccer team, among other activities.

Ohio’s U.S. senators sharply criticized North Korea last week.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman said North Korea should be “universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior.” Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said the country’s “despicable actions … must be condemned.”

The Warmbiers have “had to endure more than any family should have to bear,” Portman added.

Three Americans remain held in North Korea. The U.S. government accuses North Korea of using such detainees as political pawns. North Korea accuses Washington and South Korea of sending spies to overthrow its government.

At the time of Warmbier’s release, a White House official said Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy on North Korea, had met with North Korean foreign ministry representatives in Norway the previous month. Such direct consultations between the two governments are rare because they don’t have formal diplomatic relations.

At the meeting, North Korea agreed that Swedish diplomats could visit all four American detainees. Yun learned about Warmbier’s condition in a meeting a week before the release from the North Korean ambassador at the U.N. in New York. Yun then was dispatched to North Korea and visited Warmbier June 12 with two doctors and demanded his release on humanitarian grounds.</s>Washington (AP) -- Sen. John McCain said Tuesday that Americans who are "stupid" enough to still want to travel to North Korea should be required to sign a waiver absolving the U.S. government of any blame should they be harmed while there.

McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said North Korea "murdered" Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old American college student who died just days after North Korea released him from detention in a coma. He had arrived in Ohio on June 13 after being held for more than 17 months.

"They just murdered him," McCain said.

The University of Virginia student was accused of trying to steal a propaganda banner while visiting with a tour group and was convicted of subversion. He was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years in prison with hard labor.

"There should at least be a form for them to fill out that says, 'If I go to North Korea, I understand I am taking great risk and I do not hold the American government responsible. Now I hope the American government will help, etc., etc. But I realize what has happened to previous American citizens, including their deaths,'" McCain, R-Ariz., said in a brief interview.

"I would have that first because if people are that stupid that they still want to go to that country then at least they assume the responsibility for their welfare," McCain said.

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. should think about banning U.S. citizens from visiting North Korea.

"I think we should strongly consider it," Corker said. "It puts us in a really precarious situation when Americans are detained there."

The United States, South Korea and others have accused North Korea of using foreign detainees has hostages to secure diplomatic concessions. Three Americans remain in custody in the North.

"It's unsafe," Corker said, adding that the "trumped up charges" like those Warmbier was accused of "can continue to happen."</s>Otto Warmbier, the US student released in a coma last week after nearly 18 months in detention in North Korea, has died, leading President Donald Trump to decry the "brutal regime" in Pyongyang.

The 22-year-old was medically evacuated to the United States on Tuesday last week, suffering from severe brain damage. He died six days later surrounded by relatives in his home town 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 announcing Otto's death.

The young man was on a tourist trip when he was arrested and sentenced in March last year to 15 years hard labour for stealing a political poster from a North Korean hotel, a punishment the United States decried as far out of proportion to his alleged crime.

Trump lashed out at Pyongyang following news of his death, while voicing compassion for his family.

"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."

In a separate 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."

Doctors last week revealed that Otto 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 yesterday that he first appeared anguished when he first arrived home, but died "at peace."

Kim Jong-Un's regime said Warmbier fell into a coma soon after he was sentenced last year, claiming the college student had contracted botulism and been given a sleeping pill.

Medical tests carried out last week in the United States offered no conclusive evidence as to the cause of his neurological injuries, and no evidence of a prior 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 Warmbier's severe brain injury was most likely -- given his young age -- to have been caused by cardiopulmonary arrest cutting the blood supply to the brain.

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

His father, Fred, lashed out at North Korea last week, telling a news conference, "there is no excuse for any civilised nation to have kept his condition secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long."

In their statement yesterday, Otto's family said they believed the young man had found a peace of sorts 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.

"We thank everyone around the world who has kept him and our family in their thoughts and prayers. We are at peace and at home too."

Three more US citizens are currently being held by North Korea, including two men who taught at a Pyongyang university funded by overseas Christian groups, and a Korean-American pastor who was accused of espionage for the South.</s>It was supposed to be sassy, hinting at danger while assuring security. Though the promise of Young Pioneer Tours to offer “budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from” today appears crass in the extreme.

The death on Monday of Otto Warmbier, who was detained in Pyongyang 17 months ago while on a group tour organized by Young Pioneer, has once again laid bare the dangers of voluntarily relinquishing your liberty — even temporarily — to a tyrannical regime with no diplomatic ties to Washington. And it has augmented existing calls for a blanket travel ban on U.S. citizens visiting the regime of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, which still has three Americans — Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk and Kim Hak-song — in detention.

“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,” said President Donald Trump in a statement . “The United States once again condemns the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim.”

Warmbier, 22, had been serving a 15-year prison sentence with hard labor following his arrest on Jan. 2, 2016, for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster from a hotel in Pyongyang — deemed "a hostile act." North Korean officials said he fell into a coma soon after his conviction upon being given a sleeping pill after contracting botulism, a potentially fatal bacterial illness. He was finally returned to the U.S. last week; however, American doctors said he suffered "severe injury to all regions of the brain." Warmbier’s family said in a statement Monday that his condition was due to “awful torturous mistreatment” during detention.

“There is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition secret and denied him top notch medical care for so long,” Warmbier’s father, Fred, told a press conference.

Read More: Why Otto Warmbier Was Released From North Korea

Warmbier’s treatment and death has served as a wake-up call to both those who join and organize tours to North Korea. In an emotional statement, Young Pioneers Tours said : “The way his detention was handled was appalling, and a tragedy like this must never be repeated … Considering these facts and this tragic outcome we will no longer be organizing tours for U.S. citizens to North Korea.” Uri Tours, a U.S.-based tour company also offering trips to North Korea, said it was “reviewing its position on [North Korea] travel for American citizens.”

They may not have a choice. Although the State Department already warns in strong terms against North Korean travel, last month Republican and Democratic U.S. congressmen introduced a bill that would ban American tourists from traveling to North Korea as tourists and require special permission for other visits, citing at least 17 Americans detained by the regime over the last decade. “With increased tensions in North Korea, the danger that Americans will be detained for political reasons is greater than ever,” Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Joe Wilson said in a statement.

Since taking office, Trump has turned the screws on the Kim regime, persuading China — the source of nearly all North Korean trade — to cut off revenue and in April dispatching the Carl Vinson U.S. Navy strike group to the Korean peninsular in a show of force. Trump has warned of a “major, major conflict” with North Korea should it continue its nuclear program. The regime has conducted five nuclear tests to date and 16 missile tests this year alone.

Amid the heightening tensions, there was clearly a political aspect to Otto’s continued detention, as the regime has previously managed to wrangle visits from top U.S. figures — most recently former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — to secure the release of Americans detained. The Obama administration’s tactic of “strategic patience” — refusing to engage with the regime while squeezing it financially through sanctions — has by and large been kept in place by Trump, despite his administration's declaration that it would break with the policy. This meant no diplomatic thawing was on the cards for Warmbier; that is, until diplomats finally learned about his failing health.

Speaking to journalists upon his son’s return, Fred Warmbier thanked the Trump administration and laid blame on the Obama White House for not doing enough to secure his son’s freedom.

“Earlier this year Cindy and I decided the time for ‘strategic patience’ was over,” he said, praising new State Department Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun, who traveled to Pyongyang June 12 to secure Warmbier’s release, for his “aggressively pursued resolution of the situation.” Asked whether the Obama administration could have done more, Fred Warmbier replied, “I think the results speak for themselves.”

The fact remains that Warmbier may still be alive today if, as may now happen, Americans had been prohibited from traveling to North Korea. But it is also true that stronger diplomatic relations between Washington and Pyongyang would have aided in securing an earlier release.

“It’s just very sad,” says Prof. Stephan Haggard, a Korea expert at UCLA San Diego. “One channel is to shut down the tourism. But I’m not sure it will have much effect in terms of the larger strategy.”

Read More: Moon Jae In, the Man Who Wants to Negotiate With North Korea

Other than implementing a travel ban, which would close off a not insignificant income stream for Pyongyang, it’s unclear what more the U.S. could do to gain some sense of justice for the Warmbier family. North Korea is already one the world’s most heavily sanctioned countries, and any new economic measures would be symbolic rather than substantive. A more fitting tribute would be to secure the release of the three other Americans held by the regime before a similar tragedy befalls them, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson demanded in a statement Monday.

Washington could impose secondary sanctions on individuals and companies organizing tours to North Korea, many of which are based in China, the U.K. and U.S., though that would be a legal minefield. Such a move would also contradict recent developments indicating a move toward engagement with the North, especially after last month's election of liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

“What can the U.S. and its allies do after Otto’s death?” asked one top Korea-watcher, who requested anonymity out of respect for the Warmbier family. “The brutal reality is nothing.”</s>CINCINNATI — An American college student who was released by North Korea in a coma has died in Ohio. Otto Warmbier was 22.

His family said in a statement released by a hospital that Warmbier died Monday afternoon.

The family thanked the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for treating him but said, “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.

Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in North Korea, convicted of subversion after he tearfully confessed he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.

The University of Virginia student was held for more than 17 months and medically evacuated from North Korea last week. Doctors said he returned with severe brain damage, but it wasn’t clear what caused it.
American student Otto Warmbier, who returned to the United States after serving 17 months in the North Korean prison system dies after returning from North Korea last week in a comatose state. His family has accused the Government of North Korea of torturing him.