Funeral Held for Former North Korean Prisoner Otto Warmbier

An estimated 2,500 mourners gathered Thursday to remember Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died this week after being held for nearly a year-and-a-half in a North Korean prison.

In Warmbier’s home state of Ohio, the mourners - among them friends and family - attended his funeral at his former high school. Warmbier was to be buried at a Cincinnati cemetery.

Warmbier was sentenced to hard labor in North Korea after being convicted of attempting to steal a propaganda poster from a hotel in Pyongyang.

The 22-year-old was medically evacuated to the United States last week with severe brain damage.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman spoke at the funeral, calling Warmbier “an amazing young man” and saying Warmbier should not have been detained.

“This process has been a window into both evil, and love and good. Today we’re seeing the good, and the love that will be expressed through this outpouring of support for Otto and his family,” Portman said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is running out of patience with the North Korean regime after Warmbier’s death. Trump called Warmbier’s treatment a “total disgrace” and described the North Korean government as a brutal regime that doesn’t “respect the rule of law or basic human decency.” [Read More]

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Source: VOA News: Economy and Finance


 

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