North Korea denies torturing US detainee Otto Warmbier

He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel, North Korean state media said.

North Korea accepted repeated requests from the present US administration, the spokesman said, and repatriated the student on humanitarian grounds "in consideration of his bad health".

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from the Cincinnati area, told the throng of reporters stationed outside that Warmbier was "an incredible young man" from a resilient family and that North Korea must be held accountable for what happened to the 22-year-old University of Virginia student, who died Monday.

He said North Korea's treatment of Mr Warmbier demonstrated "a basic disregard for human rights, for human dignity".

"Although Warmbier was a criminal who committed a hostile act against the DPRK, we accepted the repeated requests of the present USA administration and, in consideration of his bad health, sent him back home on humanitarian grounds", the spokesman said.

The spokesman also said that "groundless" speculation of torture and beatings could be refuted by American doctors who came to the North to examine Warmbier before his release and allegedly acknowledged that North Korean doctors had "brought him back alive" after his heart almost stopped. The report did not mention Warmbier's neurological status. "If we could get more trips going over there, I think anything is possible", Volo said.

Katina Adams, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department's East Asia Bureau, said Washington had repeatedly requested the release of Warmbier under the Obama administration.

"The smear campaign against (North Korea) staged in the USA compels us to make firm determination that humanitarianism and benevolence for the enemy are a taboo and we should further sharpen the blade of law", the spokesman added.

He was brought back to the United States last week in a coma with brain damage, in what doctors described as state of "unresponsive wakefulness", and died on Monday. Yun, who played a critical role in securing Mr. Warmbier's release, also conveyed a message of condolence from South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

The agency accused Seoul of tarnishing Pyongyang's image with its "slanderous talk about cruel treatment and torture" while having no knowledge of the "humanitarian" treatment Mr Warmbier received in the North. Relatives say they were told the 22-year-old University of Virginia student had been in a coma since shortly after being sentenced to prison in North Korea last year. But they found no evidence that he had contracted botulism, casting doubt on North Korea's claim that he fell into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill.

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman said, "People don't see ... the good side about that country", when discussing his recent trip to North Korea with ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday.

For their part, the Chinese envoys pressed for negotiations, proposing again a "dual-track approach" in which North Korea would suspend its nuclear and missile activities while the United States and South Korea would halt large-scale military exercises.