Warmbier’s release came during a visit to North Korea by former NBA star Dennis Rodman, one of few people to have met both North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, who was Rodman’s boss on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Department of State spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters Rodman had nothing to do with Warmbier’s release. (June 13, 2017) Associated Press

WASHINGTON — An American college student whose parents say he has been in a coma while serving a 15-year prison term in North Korea was released and returned to the United States Tuesday as the Trump administration revealed a rare exchange with the reclusive country. So I think that people are trying to be supportive of the family and let the community-family know that we are very with them.”

A hospital spokeswoman said Warmbier’s family was expected to hold a news conference Thursday morning at Wyoming High School. The announcement on Warmbier’s release came as former NBA player Dennis Rodman was paying a return visit to Pyongyang. Rodman received the red-carpet treatment on his four past trips since 2013, which generated a lot of publicity — most of it not good — and did little in terms of diplomacy. Rodman said the issue of several Americans currently detained by North Korea is “not my purpose right now,” suggesting he was not involved with the release of Warmbier, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati who publicly confessed to trying to steal a North Korean propaganda banner. Warmbier's parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, said they were told he has been in a coma since his trial, when he was last seen in public, and they had learned of this only one week ago. But Rodman said the issue of several Americans detained by North Korea is “not my purpose right now.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the State Department had secured Warmbier’s release at the direction of the president. In the past, North Korea has held out until senior U.S. officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees. In 2014, Rodman arranged a basketball game with other former NBA players and North Koreans and regaled leader Kim with a rendition of “Happy Birthday.” On the same trip, he suggested an American missionary was at fault for his own imprisonment in North Korea, remarks for which he later apologized. The U.S. government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns. Thousands of U.S. troops are based in South Korea, and the Demilitarized Zone between the North and South is one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. The detention of Americans, often sentenced to draconian prison sentences for seemingly small offenses in the totalitarian nation, has compounded tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
A North Korean soldier crosses the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and defects to South Korea, the first since September 2016.