US National Security Adviser John Bolton says the White House pledged to pay North Korea for the release of American college student Otto Warmbier, but then never made a payment.
Bolton tells Fox News that US officials in 2017 signed a document promising to pay Pyongyang $2 million for Warmbier’s medical care, while he was incarcerated there.
But Bolton says that despite the agreement, signed a year before he joined the Trump administration, “no money was paid. That is clear.”
American student Otto Warmbier speaks to reporters on February 29, 2016, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)
Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, died in June 2017, shortly after he was flown home comatose after 17 months in captivity. He had been seized from a tour group while visiting North Korea in January 2016, and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
North Korea, which has denied accusations by Warmbier’s relatives that it tortured the student, has said he was provided “medical treatments and care with all sincerity.”
Last week, after The Washington Post first reported the $2 million pledge, Trump dismissed the report as “fake news,” and insisted no money was paid for Warmbier’s release.
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