Posted on 06/19/2017 2:11:02 PM PDT by detective
The comatose college student who was released from a North Korean prison last week died Monday afternoon, his family said.
Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia undergrad who served 18 months behind bars in the hermit kingdom for alleged anti-state acts, died at 2:20 p.m. at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, according to a family statement obtained by NBC News.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Absolutely.
Other countries laws are not our laws.
Ask the American kid who got canned in Singapore for spraying graffiti on the subway or something.
Bet his behind still hurts. Would have been easier had his parents spanked him a little when he was younger.
The extreme cowardice and sexual perversion of Obama will ever remain a foul stain on this nation.
Pay close attention to top graphic - animated
We should send Sean Penn to investigate.
I don’t know that it was a bad group. Not sure it would be their fault.
I’m just saying he wasn’t to blame for the evil he experienced. I. can understand a young man believing he’d be safe with a tour group in NK if there have been many previous tours with no incident.
Who didn’t see this coming?
What the hell was he doing there in the first place?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-back-otto-warmbier-s-strange-sad-trip-n77380
He had planned to study abroad in his third year of college in China and heard about Chinese travel companies offering trips to North Korea. His parents were OK with it.
“Otto’s a young, thrill-seeking, great kid who was going to be in that part of the world for a college experience,” Fred Warmbier explained.
The U.S. State Department warns against travel to North Korea. While nearly all Americans who have been there have left without incident, visitors can be suddenly seized and face lengthy incarceration for what might seem to them to be minor infractions. A state-run news agency released a short, grainy video with a shadowy, unrecognizable figure that purported to show Warmbier taking the banner down from the wall of his hotel.
There have been critics at home of Americans who venture into the unfriendly country, leaving themselves open to becoming pawns. Ohioan Jeffrey Fowle was detained in 2014 when he intentionally left a Bible in a night club. Fowle was freed after six months; he said he was kept isolated most of the time but not physically abused. He and others freed from North Korea have said they were coached and coerced into giving a confession there.
Former National Basketball Association star Dennis Rodman gets warm receptions there. When he arrived on his latest visit the day of Warmbier’s release, there was immediate speculation about his role. But officials in Washington and Pyongyang said he had none.
Young Pioneer Tours described itself as providing “budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from.” They also included Iran, Iraq and former Soviet countries.
He booked a five-day tour for late December 2015 and was in the process of leaving on Jan. 2 2016, to return to China when he was detained.
A British member of the Young Pioneer tour group who was Warmbier’s Pyongyang hotel roommate, Danny Gratton, told The Washington Post last week that he never heard or saw any hint that Warmbier planned or did anything wrong. He called him mature and very polite.**
Warmbier was abruptly pulled out of the airport security line, Gratton said. He didn’t resist or seem scared, he recalled, and gave Gratton a half-smile as he was led away.
“He was just a young lad who wanted a bit of adventure,” Gratton told The Post. “Every once in a while they single out someone to make a point, and this was just Otto’s turn. It’s so sick and warped and unnecessary and evil.”
Warmbier’s father has accused the tour company of helping lure Americans to North Korea. The company has claimed Warmbier was the first to be arrested of the 7,000 people it had taken to North Korea.
What happened to Otto Warmbier after his sentencing might never be known outside the reclusive country. \\
**There was a WAPO article stating that Danny was never contacted by US authorities for his account...Does not seem like they were trying very hard...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/06/15/otto-warmbiers-north-korea-roommate-speaks-out/?utm_term=.d400c2d64311
Hmm...Family may have belonged to the wrong party...
It sounds kind of queer.
Hey, Cuba has great music and an Earnest Hemingway tradition to boot.
Prayers for the repose of his soul.
Also, prayers for his family as they deal with this grief after they had a short taste of hope.
Just curious: what would we be signing ourselves up for IF we decided to take NK out? Would such an act start a war with China?
I concur. We should drop a fat boy on fat boy and put his countrymen out of their collective misery.
The only difference between Otto and thousands of NK gulag prisoners is that Otto was an American so they couldn’t kill him in obscurity.
Maybe time to send the butterball a near death experience courtesy of the U.S.
Damn you’re a f’ing genius!
Take a piece of paper off the wall and get torchered for over a year and return home only to die in your parents arms.
The kid had it coming to him!?
God your retarded. Really, not joking.
Looks like he spat on the mirror.
“We relied on this false premise that they would treat Otto fairly and let him go”
And that contributed to junior’s death, as well as junior thinking it was a Mexico-style fun place.
Some of it. The rest of it is on his own hands for being so d@mn fool as to go to North Korea and then give them an excuse to grab him.
Americans should not go to North Korea on a lark. Americans should not go to Iran or Iraq or Syria on a lark.
If one must be in a fanatic and dangerous place, one should put forth as low of a profile as is possible.
Taking a tour of NK is akin to taking a tour of a working concentration camp. I don’t understand why anyone would want to. But he really brought it on himself by tearing down a propaganda poster. It’s called a rogue regime and a police state for a reason. Being American doesn’t give you a pass in a place where they hate Americans. Stupid hurts.
He stole a North Korean propaganda poster extolling the virtues of their "great leader" Kim Jon Un.
It was a piece of paper hanging in the hallway of his hotel.
Anybody who voluntarily visits one of the Earth’s hell holes is an idiot.
And here I agree with you. Don't go to a hell hole and then act the fool.
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