Rex Tillerson says Otto Warmbier, University of Virginia student serving a 15-year prison term, was released but did not mention his medical condition

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that North Korea had released Otto Warmbier, an American serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts, as reports emerged that the 22-year-old has been in a coma for as long as a year.

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Tillerson said that Warmbier was on his way back to the US to be reunited with his family. He said in a statement that the state department secured Warmbier’s release at the direction of Donald Trump, adding that the department was continuing to discuss three other detained Americans with North Korea.

State department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in an afternoon press conference that she could make no comment on a report from the Washington Post that Warmbier had been in a coma since March of 2016.

Warmbier’s family told the Post that, according to North Korean officials, the 22-year-old contracted a case of botulism shortly after his trial and was given a sleeping pill from which he never woke up. Warmbier’s parents said they only learned of their son’s condition last week when the return was negotiated.

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told the Post on Tuesday morning after Otto Warmbier was evacuated. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

In a statement to media, Fred and his wife Cindy added: “We want the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime in North [Korea]. We are so grateful that he will finally be with people who love him.”

Virginia senator Tim Kaine called Warmbier’s release “long overdue” and said he was “relieved that he will soon be back home in the United States”.

“The North Korean regime should be condemned for Otto’s unjust imprisonment,” he continued.

Warmbier is being medically evacuated through the US military base in Sapporo, Japan.

A University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, Warmbier was accused of trying to steal a propaganda banner from his hotel while visiting the country as a tourist in December of 2015. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016 after a tearful televised public confession to the crime. It was widely suspected that the statement was written by North Korean officials and that Warmbier was coerced into delivering it.

At the time, state media said Warmbier’s crime was committed with “the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation”.

The court decided that Warmbier had committed his crime “pursuant to the US government’s hostile policy toward [North Korea] in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist”. Pyongyang regularly accuses the US of sending operatives to North Korea for the purpose of overthrowing the hostile regime.

Tensions have only ratcheted up since Trump became president, with the commander-in-chief warning of a potential “major, major conflict” with the nuclear-armed totalitarian nation. A series of mostly unsuccessful missile tests by North Korea in April and May were met with corresponding moves by the US military, dispatching an aircraft carrier towards the region.

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North Korean official Choe Ryong called the deployment a war-like provocation in April and said “we will respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and a nuclear war with our style of nuclear attack”.

The situation has defused somewhat in recent weeks.

Warmbier is the first release of a US prisoner since Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller were let out in November 2014 after receiving similar sentences for committing ostensibly minor crimes in the country.

Another American, Sandra Suh, was deported by the regime in 2015 for producing “anti-Pyongyang propaganda”, but was not detained for any length of time.

The announcement happens to coincide with former NBA player Dennis Rodman’s third visit to North Korea, but Nauert said Tuesday that the release and Rodman’s travels were in no way related.

The colorful and controversial Rodman said his goal was to “open the door” to the rogue nation and to see his “friend”, dictator Kim Jong-Un. His outing appeared to be sponsored by marijuana industry affiliated e-currency PotCoin.