SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea on Friday denied it cruelly treated or tortured an American student who was detained for more than year and died days after being released in a coma.
The comments published by the official Korean Central News Agency were North Korea’s first reaction to Otto Warmbier’s death in a U.S. hospital on Monday after it released him for what it called humanitarian reasons.
Doctors at the hospital said Warmbier had suffered a severe neurological injury from an unknown cause. Relatives say they were told the 22-year-old University of Virginia student had been in a coma since shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea in March 2016.
His family and others have blamed North Korea for his condition.
Warmbier was accused of stealing a propaganda poster. KCNA said the North dealt with him according to its domestic laws and international standards.