North Korea Officially Denies Torturing Otto Warmbier

"There's no excuse for the way the North Koreans treated our son". Yang later met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, where they also discussed North Korea, Xinhua reported. Friday a spokesman claimed his death was a mystery. He recalled that the United States citizen, who had admitted his guilt, was sentenced by the court to hard labor "for subversive activities against North Korea".

Warmbier, a University of Virginia student from Wyoming, Ohio, was 21 when he was detained in North Korea and held for almost 17 months before he was medically evacuated and flown to Cincinnati on June 13.

Some 2,500 mourners attended a Thursday morning memorial at Wyoming High School.

After graduating as class salutatorian in 2013, Warmbier enrolled at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he was studying at the school of commerce and was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity. Just because they are north Koreans, and not United States citizens, we shouldn't care about them?

Warmbier died Monday after his June 13 return to his home state of OH, where doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center treated him.

Accusations that the student died because of torture and beating during his captivity were "groundless", he added.

"[It] compels us to make firm determination that. we should further sharpen the blade of law", he said, adding "the United States should ponder over the consequences to be entailed from its reckless and rash act".

KCNA quoted an unnamed spokesman for the country's National Reconciliation Council as saying: "Our relevant agencies treat all criminals. thoroughly in accordance with domestic laws and global standards and Warmbier was not an exception".

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. American medical experts were quick to say it was not something that had not begun recently. At some point soon after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, from what we know, Otto suffered a severe brain injury.

"The world stage is secondary to the fact that they've lost their child", she said, "and I think we can all certainly appreciate that".

"The family's objection to an autopsy was honored and only an external examination was performed", the coroner's office said in a statement Tuesday night.

The family maintain he died as a result of "awful torturous mistreatment". The US authorities advise their citizens not to visit North Korea as tourists given the high risk.

USA lawmakers are also calling for a response to Pyongyang.

"Otto's fate deepens my administration's determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency", he said.

The article also criticised South Korea for using Mr Warmbier's case to seek the release of other detainees.