North Korea on Friday said the death of US university student Otto Warmbier soon after his return home was a mystery and dismissed accusations that Warmbier had died because of torture and beating during his captivity as “groundless.”
Warmbier was “a victim of the policy of strategic patience” of former US president Barack Obama, whose government never requested his release, a spokesman for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, according to comments carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“The fact that Warmbier died suddenly in less than a week just after his return to the US ... is a mystery to us as well,” KCNA quoted the spokesman as saying.
Warmbier, 22, was arrested while visiting the reclusive country as a tourist. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel, North Korean state media said.
He was sent home last week suffering from brain damage and in what US doctors called a state of unresponsive wakefulness. He died on Monday.
Washington had repeatedly requested the release of Warmbier under the Obama administration, the US Department of State’s East Asia Bureau spokeswoman Katina Adams said.
A former senior department official said the US had made repeated requests for Warmbier’s release on humanitarian grounds under Obama, including via the North Korean mission at the UN, via the Swedish mission in Pyongyang, at unofficial talks with North Korean officials involving former US officials and via third parties.
Warmbier’s death fanned a conflict between the North and the US that was already aggravated by North Korea’s defiant missile launches and two nuclear tests since early last year as part of its effort to build a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the US mainland.
A US official on Thursday said that North Korea had conducted another test of a rocket engine believed to be linked to Pyongyang’s ICBM program.
US President Donald Trump blamed “the brutality of the North Korean regime” for Warmbier’s death.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had advocated talks with the North, said Pyongyang had a “heavy responsibility” in the events leading up to the University of Virginia student’s death.
The North’s unnamed spokesman said that such accusations were part of a smear campaign to slander the country that had given “medical treatments and care with all sincerity” to a person who was “clearly a criminal.”
US doctors who traveled to the North last week to bring Warmbier home recognized that the North had provided him with medical treatment, the spokesman said. “To make it clear, we are the biggest victim of this incident.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese