Otto Warmbier has Died Days After Returning Home From North Korea
He spent 17 months in a North Korea prison.
College student Otto Warmbier, who spent 17 months imprisoned in North Korea, has died. From Fox News:
“It is our sad duty to report that our son, Otto Warmbier, has completed his journey home,” Fred and Cindy Warmbier wrote in a statement. “Surrounded by his loving family, Otto died today at 2:20 pm.”
“It would be easy at a moment like this to focus on all that we lost – future time that won’t be spent with a warm, engaging, brilliant young man whose curiosity and enthusiasm for life knew no bounds. But we choose to focus on the time we were given to be with this remarkable person. You can tell from the outpouring of emotion from the communities that he touched – Wyoming, Ohio and the University of Virginia to name just two – that the love for Otto went well beyond his immediate family.”
“We would like to thank the wonderful professionals at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center who did everything they could for Otto. Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today.”
“When Otto returned to Cincinnati late on June 13th he was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands. He looked very uncomfortable – almost anguished. Although we would never hear his voice again, within a day the countenance of his face changed – he was at peace. He was home and we believe he could sense that.”
“We thank everyone around the world who has kept him and our family in their thoughts and prayers. We are at peace and at home too.”
North Korea freed Warmbier on Tuesday after spending 17 months in prison in the communist country. A court sentenced Otto Warmbier to 15 years of hard labor after he allegedly stole a propaganda sign.
Warmbier returned home last Monday in a coma. Specialists at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center stated that he suffered from “severe neurological injury” and “extensive loss of brain tissue.” This told doctors that Warmbier “had lost blood supply to his brain for a period of time.”
His father Fred told the media that the “pariah regime in North Korea” “terrorized sand brutalized” his son for 18 months.
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Expected headline in NYT, WP,
“Otto Warmbier lived when under Socialized medicine; dies within days under Capitalist medicine”
fscarn wins the internet for the day!
Few stories we have covered at Legal Insurrection leaves me sadder than this one. Prayers for the comfort of the Warmbier family and the spirit of their son. Such a sad, senseless loss.
So very sad RIP
Absolutely heart-breaking. I echo Leslie in that this was a sad and senseless loss.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. What a devastating loss for them all.
While I feel for the family the main emotion that such senselessness brings up in me is anger. Anger at people who think you can appease psychotic animals.
This should be unthinkable that anyone would take an american hostage for trumped up charges and cause him such harm and the reason they do it is because we have surrendered out position of strength in the world.
Right now Kim Jong Tubby should be running for his bunker after hearing that this young man died and he should be running for a damned good reason. Because by the end of this week his “palace” should lay in ruins.
But I guess that might hurt someones feelings so can’t do that.
Bomb the palace, and drop a dirty bomb with long life isotopes on the bunker area. Do the same to areas where he has nuclear facilities. Make them so radioactive that they will not be able to get to them.
Torpedoing an SK patrol boot, starving a nation, attacking US military at the “Peace Village”….. it goes on and on…. another life extinguished now… how many are dying unknown? Everyday the potential for so many more deaths goes up .. exponentially… with nukes.
The condemnations from the international communites are deafening said no one in the MSM.
Very sad situation & prayers for the family.
Why do I have a feeling something will be done over there?
Brain tissue loss? I’m trying to figure that out. Over-zealous water boarding?
Could be anything that causes asphyxiation, hanging, choking, near drowning. God knows what those pot bellied savages did to him.
Last night on Lou Dobbs, Lt Col Tony Schafer – an intelligence officer- said the brain tissue loss was caused by overuse of sodium pentothal, the truth serum. He said that after a while it fries the brain. The docs said that there was tissue loss in every part of his brain. This explanation seems on point.
Very well could be that as well, I hadn’t considered torture drugs.
Send in assassins and take him out..end this madness.
I did not intend to downrate this post, but I do thing that assassins are impractical. I do think that we should institute a million to one kill policy and that we should do whatever it takes to end their nuclear capabilities.
It needs to be noted that the “strategic patience” path the Wambier family to follow simply served the short term political interests of Obama. It did not serve the interests of the Wambier family in general or Otto Wambier in particular.
And yes I know Trump was not personally involved. I would not expect any President, including Obama, to get personally involved in this sort of negotiation. Just that they would direct their administrations to do certain things, or alternatively not to do certain things.
It is quite obvious as Otto Wambier’s father has not so obliquely observed in his first press conference after his son arrived in the US (“The results speak for themselves”) that Obama didn’t want to lift a finger to help an American in NORK captivity. And Trump did.
I was never a #NeverTrump. But I thought Trump would be a disaster. Not as big a disaster as Hillary! but still, a disaster. But I’m man enough to admit he’s done a lot more things right than I imagined he could.
“Strategic Patients” equal soft surrender.
Like I have said before, this should never happen because every country in the world should be afraid, yes afraid, to touch an american abroad because they know what the reprisal will be.
R.I.P. Otto Wambier. Lord knows you got too little of it during the last couple of years in your foreshortened life.
*It needs to be noted that the “strategic patience” path the Wambier family WERE TOLD TO FOLLOW BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION simply served the short term political interests of Obama.
This guy was just an inconvenience to Obama.
His death is squarely on the head of Obama.
Mailman
For what good it does, it appears that the tour company that facilitated travel to NK from China will no longer send Americans there.