US doctors say freed North Korean captive Otto Warmbier has a neurological injury and remains stable, but in a coma.
A team of Cincinnati doctors caring for an American student medically evacuated from North Korea said Thursday he has a neurological injury and remains in a coma.
The hermit state freed Otto Warmbier on Tuesday after about 17 months in custody. He was then flown back to the U. S. where received urgent medical attention from a team of physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Ohio.
The communist regime accused the 22-year-old of stealing a political banner and held a trial in March 2016 where he was convicted of “hostile acts” and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
North Korea claims Warmbier went into a coma after taking a sleeping pill and says he also had botulism. However, physicians in his care team in Cincinnati said during a press conference Thursday that they conducted tests and showed no signs of active botulism.
Warmbier remains in a coma, but stable since being brought back to his home state of Ohio. It was learned only this week that he’s been in a coma for more than a year.
There have been reports Warmbier was mistreated in the custody of the North Koreans and possibly physically beaten.
His father Otto Warmbier spoke Thursday and expressed relief that his son was released but added the family has “anger that he was so brutally treated for so long. We went for 15 months without a word from or about Otto.”
The elder Warmbier said his family doesn’t believe the excuse given by North Korea that Otto’s condition today was due to a sleeping pill and botulism. Regardless, he said there’s “no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long.”
His son went to North Korea as part of a group tour arranged by a China-based company.
