FATHER TALKS: Otto Warmbier’s dad doesn’t buy North Korea claim that a sleeping pill caused him to fall into a coma. https://t.co/iIxxrp380j pic.twitter.com/CZi5QykYYh
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 15, 2017
While Dennis Rodman handed over a copy of Trump’s Art of the Deal to North Korea’s foreign minister, the father of ex-detainee Otto Warmbier spoke to the press. Fred Warmbier gave an update on his medical condition along with expressing how he and his wife don’t buy North Korea’s explanation for how their son somehow ended up in a coma — after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for removing a propaganda banner from a hotel hallway.
Apparently, Otto had been comatose for at least a year without North Korea breathing a word of his status to the U.S., and Pyongyang says he contracted botulism, a rare bacterial poisoning that can lead to a coma if left untreated. North Korea also says that a sleeping pill contributed to his state, which Fred Warmbier thinks is a sketchy detail. Via Fox News:
“Even if you believe their explanation of botulism and a sleeping pill causing a coma — and we don’t — there is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition a secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long.”
Indeed, a University of Cincinnati Medical Center spokeswoman spoke with CNN to report that Otto experienced a “severe neurological injury.” Fred Warmbier, in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, also stated that Otto was “terrorized and brutalized” by North Korea for months following his imprisonment that sourced from an early 2016 incident. However, Fred did not elaborate upon exactly what type of physical brutalization Otto may have endured.
Fred Warmbier also credited the Trump administration for its “tough” approach to securing Otto’s release, whereas he says that Obama’s White House simply encouraged the parents to lay low while no progress was made. North Korea, for its part, maintains that it released Otto for “humanitarian” reasons, although the question of how he suffered a neurological injury while detained remains unanswered. And since botulism is a neurological disorder, the mystery deepens.
In this clip, Fred Warmbier chokes up while discussing the pride he has for his son. During the press conference, he wore the same suit jacket that Otto wore while confessing to what Kim Jong-un’s regime considered to be a “hostile act” against the government.
Father of student freed from North Korea tears up talking about his son being back home https://t.co/oAkjl7hVw9 https://t.co/rCdrlu1qfp
— CNN (@CNN) June 15, 2017