Otto Warmbier

Otto Frederick Warmbier (December 12, 1994 – June 19, 2017) was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 on a charge of subversion.

Otto Warmbier was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 12, 1994.

The eldest of Cynthia ("Cindy", née Garber) and Fred Warmbier's three children, he was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He attended Wyoming High School, where he was considered popular and studious, and graduated in 2013 as salutatorian.

After that, he enrolled at the University of Virginia, where he was pursuing a double major degree in commerce and economics, and did a foreign exchange at the London School of Economics.

His minor was in global sustainability.

Warmbier, who was Jewish through his mother, was active in Hillel on his college campus.

He was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity.

Being interested in other cultures, he had visited Israel (on a Birthright trip), Europe, Cuba, and Ecuador.

Warmbier entered North Korea as part of a guided tour group on December 29, 2015.

On December 29, 2015, Warmbier flew via Beijing to North Korea with his tour group, which included ten other U.S. citizens, for a five-day New Year's tour.

The tour group celebrated New Year's Eve by carousing in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square before returning to the Yanggakdo International Hotel, where some continued drinking alcohol.

According to his trial, Warmbier tried to steal a propaganda poster from a staff-only area of the hotel at around 2:00 am on New Year's Day.

On January 2, 2016, he was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while awaiting departure from the country.

He was convicted of attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel, for which he was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment with hard labor.

Shortly after his sentencing in March 2016, Warmbier suffered a severe neurological injury from an unconfirmed cause and fell into a coma, which lasted until his death.

Otto Warmbier was scheduled to undertake a study-abroad program in Hong Kong in early 2016, and decided to visit North Korea en route over the New Year period.

He booked a tour of North Korea with Young Pioneer Tours, a budget tour operator based in China founded by two Westerners, whose slogan was "Destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from."

Warmbier's father Fred said that Young Pioneer advertised the trip as safe for U.S. citizens and that Otto was "curious about their culture ... he wanted to meet the people of North Korea."

On January 2, 2016, Warmbier was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while awaiting departure from North Korea.

Danny Gratton, a British member of Warmbier's tour group, witnessed the arrest.

He said:

"No words were spoken. Two guards just came over and simply tapped Otto on the shoulder and led him away. I just said kind of quite nervously, 'Well, that's the last we'll see of you.' There's a great irony in those words. That was it. That was the last physical time I saw Otto, ever. Otto didn't resist. He didn't look scared. He sort of half-smiled."

When the group's plane was about to leave the terminal, an official came aboard and announced, "Otto is very sick and has been taken to the hospital."

Some media reports indicated that Warmbier spoke by phone to a Young Pioneer tour guide following his arrest, but this was denied by a Young Pioneer spokesman who told BBC News that "none of its employees had direct contact with Otto after he was escorted away."

The others in his tour group left the country without incident.

North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) initially announced that Warmbier had been detained for "a hostile act against the state," without specifying further details.

North Korea refused to elaborate on the precise nature of his wrongdoing for six weeks, although a Young Pioneer spokeswoman advised Reuters there had been an "incident" at the Yanggakdo Hotel.

In a press conference on February 29, 2016, Warmbier, reading from a prepared statement, confessed that he had attempted to steal a propaganda poster from a restricted staff-only area of the second floor of the Yanggakdo Hotel to take home.

The poster said (in Korean), "Let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong Il's patriotism!"

Damaging or stealing such items with the name or image of a North Korean leader is considered a serious crime by the North Korean government.

In June 2017, he was released by North Korea in a vegetative state and died soon after his parents requested his feeding tube be removed.

North Korean authorities did not disclose his medical condition until June 2017, when they announced he had fallen into a coma as a result of botulism and a sleeping pill.

He was freed later that month, still in a comatose state after 17 months in captivity.

He was repatriated to the United States and arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 13, 2017.

He was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for immediate evaluation and treatment.

Warmbier never regained consciousness and died on June 19, 2017, six days after his return to the United States when his parents requested his feeding tube be removed.

A coroner's report stated that he died from an unknown injury causing lack of oxygen to the brain.

Non-invasive internal scans did not find any signs of fractures to his skull.

In 2018, a U.S. federal court found the North Korean government liable for Warmbier's torture and death, in a default judgment in favor of Warmbier's parents after North Korea did not contest the case.