In January of 2016, Otto Warmbier was a 21 year old American college student visiting the North Korean capital of Pyongyang with a tour group, when he was detained for attempting to steal a propaganda poster from the staff only area of the hotel he had been staying in.
Otto would be convicted and sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment with hard labor. Little would be heard about Otto until 17 months later when the North Korean government agreed to release Otto back to the United States. Otto returned home in June of 2017, but he was in a comatose state described as unresponsive wakefulness, for which North Korean doctors gave conflicting explanations. Otto would never regain consciousness and died at a Cincinnati hospital on June 19, 2017.
How did Otto Warmbier end up in a coma so quickly into his 15 year sentence, and what led up to Otto’s imprisonment in the hermit kingdom?
A Small Foreign Fact Check is hosted by Jill Goguen. Follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at SmallForeignFC. The show can be reached at SmallForeignFC@gmail.com.
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