Parents of tragic Otto Warmbier heard their son begging for freedom on TV then never heard his voice again – The Sun

Student was sent into a forced labour camp for stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel

STUDENT Otto Warmbier was plucked from the passport control queue and arrested as he tried to leave North Korea.

The tourist was held for stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel, and his pal jokingly told him: Well, thats the last well see of you.

Getty Images

The quip was actually a grim look into his future. Two months later he was paraded on state television, weeping as he begged judges to find it in your hearts to allow me to return home.

That was the last time his family heard him speak.

Two weeks later he was sentenced to 15 years in one of dictator Kim Jong-uns brutal labour camps.

Reuters

AP:Associated Press

Getty Images

After 17 months, Otto, 22, was last week flown home to the US in a coma, unresponsive and severely brain damaged. On Monday, he was dead.

His parents, Fred and Cindy, said: He was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands.

He looked very uncomfortable almost anguished. Although wed never hear his voice again, within a day the countenance on his face changed he was at peace.

He was home and we believe he could sense that.

The University of Virginia student travelled to Pyongyang, the capital, as part of a group trip organised by Young Pioneer Tours. Founded by Brit Gareth Johnson, the company claims to offer bizarre experiences.

How Otto ended up dead is likely down to North Koreas notorious labour camps, some of which are so big they can be seen from space.

AP:Associated Press

AP:Associated Press

AP:Associated Press

One, Camp 16, holds 20,000 political prisoners and is twice the size of Birmingham.

A United Nations Human Rights report in 2014 described the abuse in the camps as brutality that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.

North Korea claimed Otto fell into a coma after suffering a rare and extreme form of food poisoning.

Yet medics in the US could find no sign of the illness and believed Otto, from Cincinnati, Ohio, suffered a heart attack after his brain was starved of oxygen. There was no evidence of physical torture but former detainees have told of daily deaths due to starvation and intense work.

Jeong Kwang-il, who was released in 2003, said: Too much work was expected of prisoners, so they could not get food because they failed to meet their quota. Thus they get weaker and die because of starvation.

American Kenneth Bae, who was released in 2014, recalled being interrogated for 14 hours a day for the first month then forced into labour for ten-hour days, six days a week.

AP:Associated Press

Barcroft Media

Getty Images

His toil included carrying rock and shovelling coal.

Testimonies given to the UN told of child prisoners, women disappearing after being raped by guards and detainees forced to dig their own graves. Currently, three other US citizens and one Canadian are being held.

Otto arrived in Pyongyang on December 30, 2015, with British tourist Danny Gratton, from Stone, Staffs.

Danny said Kim Jong-uns barbarity was something the West cant grasp, the evilness behind that dictatorship.

Before his trial in February last year, it is believed Otto confessed in the hope of securing a lenient sentence.

Nothing was known about his condition until US officials were told this month that he had been in a coma for more than a year.

Young Pioneer Tours said it would no longer offer North Korea trips to US citizens, while the Home Office warns of the risk of detention.

See the article here:

Parents of tragic Otto Warmbier heard their son begging for freedom on TV then never heard his voice again - The Sun