What happened to Otto Warmbier in North Korea? | DW Documentary
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Published 2020-11-27
Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years hard labor in 2016 after being convicted of attempting to steal a propaganda poster during a trip to Pyongyang. Just over a year on he was dead, having been sent home to the US in a vegetative state. US President Donald Trump tweeted that he had been "tortured beyond belief " in North Korea. The US president blamed both the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the Obama administration for Warmbier’s death - and Trump appeared before the media with the student’s parents. This was at the peak of the North Korean missile crisis. Later, as relations between Trump and Kim Jong Un became warmer, the US president changed his tune. In 2019 Trump said that he believed that Kim did not know what happened to the US student much to the consternation of Warmbier’s parents.
What really happened to Otto Warmbier in North Korea? Veteran foreign correspondent Klaus Scherer sets out to try to find out. In the documentary, Scherer interviews a number of people with knowledge of the case who have been largely unheard up to now. He shows that a US court investigating a liability case against North Korea brought by Warmbier’s parents also ignored important witnesses, who continue to cast doubt on the torture allegations. These include the coroner in Cincinnati who examined Warmbier’s body. She believes that the account given by North Korean doctors is credible. They claim that Warmbier had inadvertently been given too high a dose of sedatives by prison staff. This, the medics say was the cause of his state of unresponsive wakefulness. Could Trump’s initial torture charges simply have been motivated by political opportunism?
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All Comments (21)
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Lesson learnt :Never visit a country where you government doesnt have an embassy.
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North Korea exists in a different dimension. I wouldn't go there if I was paid.
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Do not go to a dictatorship & expect to be treated like you are in a democracy.
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His walk as they are holding him up to go to "court" says it all..
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this shit is one of the scariest things i’ve ever heard. there’s not enough money in the world to make me go to nk
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Lesson learned: Never visit a country which your government is virtually at war with
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I can never imagine the pain him or his family had to go through, i pray he's in a better place and that his family finds peace
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The case is rather more horrific. Otto looked even more terrified when he attended the press conference. Nobody can really imagine the amount of torture this young man had been through before he reached US. RIP OTTO
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I'm really confused about people being like "Oh I saw no signs of torture". There's tons of types of torture that wouldn't leave marks. Including giving him rotten food, choking him, chemical stuff that would be gone from the system by the time he got back home, psychological. Why does it seem like a debate?
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"These North Korean prisons are not ideal" Can tell this guy is a politician
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That British guy had no idea how right he was when he said “Well that’s the last we’ll see of you” when the guards took him away
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He was killed because they couldn't afford him coming home and telling everything he witnessed. North Korea is too secretive to allow that. This will always haunt me as a human being.
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They couldn't let him live to tell about what he saw.
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The slogan of the tour company, "We take you to destinations your mother would rather you stay away from ", would be the first indication or common sense thought to not book with them or follow others.
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If otto had been well cared for, he would be alive and well now.
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My heart breaks for the young man's torment he went through and for his parents. What an awful horrendous loss. Tears flow for thee.
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You couldn’t pay me to go to North Korea
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I went to high school with Otto and this incident will haunt me forever. I didn't know him well at all, I only had one class with him and a few with his brother but I did know some of his close friends from various extracurriculars. I still remember vividly the entire day when we learned he was "coming home". I was at lifeguarding at the community pool and we got the news that he was coming home and he was in a coma. At first we all were kind of talking about how famous he's going to be and how he'll probably write a book and go on speaking tours, but then some lady (who wasn't a community member she just worked at the pool) said "You guys realize he's coming back to die" Ouch. That hit hard. Frankly I don't think she should've said this to a group of his friends, classmates, and acquaintances, like, read the room lady, but we all knew she was right. It just wouldn't sink in for us, his peers, that something so horrible could happen to someone our age from our school in our tiny community. His funeral was the only one I've ever attended for someone under like 60. I know I am incredibly blessed for that. It was and still is surreal. This all being said, for the sake of his friends and family who come and watch these videos and deal with his death every day, please keep nasty comments about him "deserving it" to yourself. No one knows what happened, no one knows if he in fact did anything at all or if he was just very unlucky to have been set up and used as a political pawn. The claims of a country that works tirelessly to brainwash its own citizens believe outlandish lies should at least come under some level of suspicion or scrutiny when claiming anything.
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Otto Warmbier has learned that you absolutely cannot play pranks in North Korea.
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You’re forgiven Otto. You didn’t deserve death for a mistake. May you rest in peace & May your family find peace
