US President Donald Trump slams the “brutal regime” in Pyongyang following the death of Otto Warmbier, the US student released in a coma last week after nearly 18 months in detention in North Korea.
The 22-year-old was medically evacuated to the United States last Tuesday, suffering from severe brain damage. He died six days later surrounded by relatives in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Warmbier was on a tourist trip when he was arrested and sentenced in March last year to 15 years hard labor for stealing a political poster from a North Korean hotel, a punishment US officials decried as out of proportion to his alleged crime.
Trump condemns Pyongyang following news of his death.
“It’s a brutal regime,” he says during a White House event. “Bad things happened but at least we got him home to his parents.” He then added with no explanation: “We’ll be able to handle it.”
In a separate written statement, Trump says, “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.”
— AFP
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