The judge said the large award was necessary to punish and deter North Korea for the ‘torture, hostage-taking, and extrajudicial killing’ of Warmbier
WASHINGTON – A federal court judge on Monday ordered North Korea to pay the parents of Otto Warmbier more than $500 million, holding the country accountable for the “barbaric mistreatment” and death of the University of Virginia student.
The case attracted international attention because Warmbier was seized by North Korea at a time of escalating tensions with the United States, and because of the horrific circumstances of the case: He entered North Korea a joyful, ambitious young man, and he returned to the United States nearly a year and a half later with severe brain damage. In wrenching testimony last week, his family described the months without any word, the joy they felt when the plane returning Warmbier touched down in Ohio in June 2017 – and the shock and horror of seeing a beloved son and brother shattered beyond anything the family could imagine. He was unresponsive, howling and convulsing when they stepped onto the plane.
“There’s evil in this world,” Cindy Warmbier, his mother, told the court. “It’s North Korea.”
In a strongly worded opinion, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the large award was necessary to punish and deter North Korea for the “torture, hostage-taking, and extrajudicial killing” of Warmbier.
Before Warmbier went on what was intended to be a short visit to North Korea with a tour group, Howell wrote, “he was a healthy, athletic student of economics and business in his junior year at the University of Virginia, with ‘big dreams’ and both the smarts and people skills to make him his high school class salutatorian, homecoming king, and prom king.
“… He was blind, deaf, and brain dead when North Korea turned him over to U. S. government officials for his final trip home.”
While experts debated whether the award money could be extracted, they agreed the ruling is important because it sends a strong message to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, that he cannot act with impunity.
“We are thankful that the United States has a fair and open judicial system so that the world can see that the Kim regime is legally and morally responsible for Otto’s death,” Cindy Warmbier and her husband, Fred, said in a statement Monday afternoon.
