US student released from North Korean jail in coma

January 2016: American college student Otto Warmbier is imprisoned in North Korea.

Warmbier's parents say he has been in a coma for a year and that they found out about it last week. Talking about them, Rodman told reporters they're "not my objective right now".

Rodman also did not mention Warmbier or the three other Americans now detained in North Korea when he spoke with journalists in Beijing before leaving for Pyongyang on Tuesday.

Mr Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties". It also said that the Trump administration did not authorize Rodman's visit and warned Americans against going to North Korea.

Rodman has palled around with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in has last few visits.

Anthony Ruggiero is an expert on North Korea at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

But back in Pyongyang, the Swedes were allowed to see only one detainee, and it wasn't Warmbier.

Otto F. Warmbier, a USA citizen who had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea last year, has been released.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement to The Associated Press that their son is in a coma and flying home.

Warmbier appeared emotional at a news conference organized by the North Koreans before his trial in March 2016.

"In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma", veteran former diplomat Bill Richardson said in a statement after speaking to Warmbier's parents.

Yun arrived in Pyongyang early Monday and immediately requested that North Korean officials take him and two American physicians to Warmbier. North Korea and Iran are both holding innocent American citizens and green card holders.

The United States had accused the North of using Warmbier as a political pawn and condemned the sentence as far out of proportion to his alleged crime.

They say that Otto Warmbier is on a Medivac flight on his way home. Bae was charged with "hostile acts against the state" and was in a North Korean labor camp for two years.

It happened on the same day that former National Basketball Association player turned friend of North Korean dictator Dennis Rodman landed in the country.

Lawmakers from Virginia also hailed Warmbier's release and denounced North Korea of its actions.

Tillerson consulted with Trump and arrangements were made for Yun and a medical team to travel to Pyongyang, the official said. The Warmbiers said they were told their son has remained in a coma since then.

That was used as evidence in his hour-long trial, during which North Korea accused him of committing "hostile acts" against the regime at the urging of a purported member of a church in his home state of OH, a secretive university organization and the Central Intelligence Agency. Then, Rodman asked Kim to release the prisoner to show the USA how loving he is.

However, it must do so without making the kind of outlandish concessions that the Obama administration made as a matter of course to secure the release of US citizens held by Iran.

Warmbier is the second American freed from overseas detention after intervention by the Trump administration. In rare high-level contacts, Yun met senior North Korean officials in Oslo in May, where it was agreed Swedish officials in Pyongyang, who handle U.S. consular affairs there, would be allowed to see all four American detainees, a State Department official said. The third is Kim Dong-chul, who was given ten years of hard labor for spying and stealing state secrets.

There was no immediate confirmation from US officials of North Korea's version of events - notably whether Warmbier was stricken with botulism, a potentially fatal illness that is caused by a toxin but is not usually associated with loss of consciousness.