Episode 668
Otto Warmbier
Sat, 2019-Mar-02 02:09 UTC
Length - 3:13
Direct Link
Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.
With 172,451 views on Friday, 1 March 2019 our article of the day is Otto Warmbier.
Otto Frederick Warmbier (December 12, 1994 – June 19, 2017) was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 after being convicted of theft of a propaganda poster. In June 2017, the U.S. government secured his release, although he was by then in a vegetative state and died soon thereafter.
Warmbier had been traveling to Hong Kong for a study abroad program when he decided to visit North Korea on a guided tour at the end of December 2015. While there, he allegedly attempted to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel, for which he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment with hard labor.
Shortly after his sentencing in March 2016, Warmbier suffered severe neurological injury from an unconfirmed cause and fell into a coma, lasting over a year. North Korean authorities did not disclose his medical condition until June 2017, when they announced he had fallen into a coma as a result of botulism and a sleeping pill. He was freed later that month, still in a comatose state after 17 months in captivity. He was repatriated to the United States, arriving in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 13, 2017. He was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for immediate evaluation and treatment, where physicians found no evidence of botulism.
Warmbier never regained consciousness and died on June 19, 2017, six days after his return to the United States after his parents requested his feeding tube be removed. A coroner's report was unable to identify the cause of the injury, finding no physical evidence of torture. Non-invasive internal scans did not find any signs of fractures to his skull.In 2018, the North Korean government was held liable in a U.S. federal court for his torture and death after a default judgment in favor of Warmbier's parents. An expert witness stated in court papers that Warmbier's injuries suggested he had been tortured with electrocution. In 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump said he accepted the word of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that Kim did not know about Warmbier's situation.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 02:09 UTC on Saturday, 2 March 2019.
For the full current version of the article, see Otto Warmbier on Wikipedia.
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