This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The parents of Otto Warmbier, a young man who was detained in North Korea for more than a year and died soon after being released, said on Tuesday he was “jerking violently”, howling and “staring blankly” when he returned home on a medical flight.

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The young man’s father, Fred Warmbier, also said his son, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, had been tortured and that his mouth “looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth”.

Amid escalating tension between the Trump administration and North Korea, Fred and Cindy Warmbier appeared on the Fox & Friends morning TV show. Fred Warmbier said he and his wife decided to speak out after hearing North Korea claiming to be a victim.

“North Korea is not a victim,” he said. “They’re terrorists. They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims.”

North Korea has denied mistreating the youth, who was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor in March 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster while visiting as a tourist. He was arrested that January as he prepared to leave the country.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier described the condition in which the family found their son when they went aboard an air ambulance that arrived in Cincinnati in June. They said Otto was howling, making an “involuntary, inhuman sound”, “staring blankly into space jerking violently” and was blind and deaf with his head shaved.

Fred Warmbier also said Otto had a large scar on his right foot and a high fever, and added that Otto’s mother and sister ran off the plane at the sight of him.

“We weren’t prepared,” Cindy Warmbier said. “No mother, no parent should ever have gone through what we went through.”

She said it was “inexcusable” that her son had been alone in captivity with no one to comfort him. She said she “got it together” and stayed with him after his arrival.

Otto Warmbier died at the University of Cincinnati medical center less than a week after returning. Doctors there said he arrived in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” and had suffered a “severe neurological injury” of uncertain cause.

Trump tweeted about the Warmbiers’ appearance on Fox & Friends – a Fox News show which he reportedly watches regularly.

The president called the appearance “a great interview”. He wrote: “Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.”

A North Korean official has claimed Trump has in effect declared war, which the White House denied.