North Korea Says Otto Warmbier Was Released on ‘Humanitarian Grounds’<br />Then last week, North Korean diplomats at the United Nations told Mr. Yun that Mr. Warmbier had been in a coma for more than a year.<br />The North’s terse announcement on Thursday served to highlight many other unanswered questions about Mr. Warmbier, such as<br />why North Korea kept his medical condition from United States officials for so long and why it decided to release him.<br />If the North intended Mr. Warmbier’s release as a diplomatic overture toward Washington, whether<br />it leads to broader talks would depend on Mr. Warmbier’s condition, analysts said.<br />By CHOE SANG-HUNJUNE 15, 2017<br />SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Thursday that it had freed the American college student Otto F. Warmbier on "humanitarian grounds"<br />but did not reveal any details of his medical condition or the diplomatic negotiations that led to his release.<br />Moon said that Otto has been terrorized and brutalized for 18 months by a pariah regime in North Korea.<br />After he was held for more than a year in North Korea, Mr. Warmbier, 22, was flown from<br />Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to Ohio, his home state, in a coma on Tuesday.
