(CNN) A former State Department official turned congressman questioned Mike Pompeo on Kim Jong Un's culpability for human rights violations, pressing the Secretary of State to answer how such a person could be likeable.

Rep. Tom Malinowski, a former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, asked Pompeo whether the North Korean leader was responsible for the country's labor camps and the deaths of his uncle and half-brother.

To each of those questions, Pompeo replied, "He's the leader of the country."

The New Jersey Democrat then asked whether Kim "was responsible for the decision not to allow Otto Warmbier to come home until he was on death's door."

North Korea released Warmbier in June 2017 after more than a year of imprisonment. He was returned to the US in a coma, blind and deaf. He never regained consciousness and died days later at the age of 22. US officials blamed North Korea for the brain damage that led to his death.