”Tortyrliknande hantering orsakade vår sons död”

Otto Frederick Warmbier (WAR-ihm-beer; born December 12, 1994) is an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 after being convicted of "hostile acts" against the country. Warmbier, then 21, "confessed" to stealing a political propaganda poster and was sentenced to 15 years' hard labor. The United States made diplomatic attempts to seek Warmbier's release. A U.S. State Department spokesman said Warmbier's harsh sentence was a response to U.S. sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear activities. According to his father, Warmbier's confession was forced and he was abducted by the North Korean regime for political purposes. Warmbier fell into a coma in North Korea after suffering "severe neurological injury" and was released in June 2017, after nearly 18 months in North Korea. According to North Korean authorities, the coma was a result of botulism and a sleeping pill, but U.S. physicians cast doubt on that claim. Warmbier arrived in Cincinnati on June 13 and was rushed to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for immediate evaluation and treatment. His prognosis is not yet known, but his father believes that he was "terrorized and brutalized" for being an American.