American Detainee Otto Warmbier Released By North Korea for Medical Reasons
|Here is another one of those only in North Korea stories:
University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier has been medically evacuated from North Korea in a coma after being detained for 17 months, his parents told The Washington Post on Tuesday.
Warmbier, 22, is due to arrive home in Cincinnati on Tuesday evening, having been evacuated through a U.S. military base in Sapporo, Japan.
Warmbier has been in a coma for more than a year, since shortly after his last public appearance during his trial in Pyongyang in March 2016.
“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told The Post on Tuesday morning after Otto Warmbier was evacuated. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.” [Washington Post]
You can read much more at the link, but readers my remember Warmer was the guy who visited North Korea and tried to steal a Kim regime propaganda poster off the hotel wall and received a 15 year prison sentence. The sentencing was obviously completely inappropriate for the crime, but like I have said repeatedly that is the risk that any American going to North Korea takes and why no one should travel there.
With that said I hope Warmbier is able to recover from the botulism he received while in captivity likely from food poisoning. It is horrible that the Kim regime allowed Warmbier to be in coma for a year before having him released for proper medical treatment. Additionally the Kim regime is now trying to take media attention away from their treatment of Warmbier by allowing top US diplomat to North Korea Dennis Rodman to visit North Korea at the same time.
He’ll earn millions in book sales and media appearances.
If he lives long enough to.
That “Year in a coma” thing is strange. North Korea doesn’t have the facilities to maintain someone that long, and who knows how long he’s really been under, or what his health is?
Seems to me more like North Korea passed off the Hot Potato before they got caught holding it. If Otto dies, it will be “because of America’s poor health system” and not the torture and poor health conditions in North Korea.
I totally agree. If he died while in North Korea, I wonder if they would of released his body back to the US. I’m surprised we didn’t find out sooner that he was in a coma for over a year.
“He’ll earn millions in book sales and media appearances.”
No. He is a Christian white male.
Nobody cares.
A lot of good that will do him if he has brain damage (likely).
“Year in a coma in a DPRK prison” sounds suspiciously like anoxic encephalopathy to me.
should have kept his hand off of other people property OPP get down with it