Otto Warmbier freed 18 months into 15-year sentence as Trump invites South Korean leader to Washington for talks on standoff

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

An American student who fell into a coma while imprisoned in a North Korean labour camp has returned to the US after Pyongyang allowed him to be flown home.



A military plane carrying Otto Warmbier landed in his hometown of Cincinnati shortly before 10.20pm (2.20am GMT) on Wednesday.

The release of Warmbier, 18 months into a 15-year sentence, came as Donald Trump invited South Korea’s new leader, Moon Jae-In, to Washington for talks on the escalating standoff over the North’s nuclear programme.

The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said earlier in the day his agency had “secured” the 22-year-old’s release in talks with North Korea and was pushing for three more Americans to be freed. It was not immediately clear if he had made any concessions.

The news surfaced after the flamboyant retired NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman – a former contestant on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice reality TV show – flew to Pyongyang to resume his quixotic quest to broker a detente between the US and Kim Jong-un’s authoritarian regime.

The State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Rodman’s visit “had nothing to do with the release”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Otto Warmbier shown being escorted at the supreme court in Pyongyang in 2016. Photograph: Jon Chol Jin/AP

Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy, announced his release in a statement to CNN on Tuesday. “Sadly, he is in a coma and we have been told he has been in that condition since March of 2016,” they said. “We learned of this only one week ago.”

On arriving in Cincinnatti’s Lunken airport, Warmbier was transferred to a waiting ambulance that took him to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for treatment, Fox News reported.

Warmbier’s parents were told their son was given a sleeping pill soon after his trial in March last year and never woke. US officials refused to comment on his condition, but the former ambassador and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson said he had spoken with the family.

“Otto has been in a coma for over a year now and urgently needs proper medical care in the United States,” said Richardson, who has previously served as a special envoy to North Korea and still works on prisoner issues.

“We received a call from Cindy and Fred Warmbier early today to update us on Otto’s condition. In no uncertain terms, North Korea must explain the causes of his coma.”

Tillerson told US senators at the start of a budget hearing that the State Department had no comment on Warmbier’s condition “out of respect for him and his family”.

The US had accused the North of using Warmbier as a political pawn, condemning the sentence as far out of proportion to his alleged crime. His release came amid tension between Washington and Pyongyang following a series of missile tests by the North, focusing attention on an arms buildup that the Pentagon chief, Jim Mattis, on Monday called “a clear and present danger to all”.

Almost immediately on taking office in January, Trump and his team – having been briefed by the outgoing president, Barack Obama – declared that the North’s attempts to build, test and arm a nuclear-capable ballistic missile were Washington’s biggest threat.

Washington has stepped up pressure on China and other foreign powers to enforce existing UN sanctions, and has deployed increased military assets of its own in the region.

Tillerson indicated on Tuesday that Washington was looking for new ways to increase pressure on Pyongyang, telling senators the White House was considering whether to impose “secondary sanctions” on third countries that do business with North Korea.

Rodman arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a cryptocurrency set up for marijuana marketers. The star has visited the North at least four times before, most recently in 2014 when he attracted a deluge of criticism after being filmed singing happy birthday to his “friend for life”, Kim.

Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, was arrested after removing a political banner from a wall at a North Korean hotel. He was detained at the airport as he was leaving the country with a tour group in January 2016.

At a news conference before his trial, Warmbier said he had made “the worst mistake of my life” and pleaded to be released.

The North has occasionally jailed US citizens and released them only after visits by high-profile political figures, including the former president Bill Clinton.