Otto Warmbier attempted suicide, was not tortured by North Koreans

Warmbier's brain damage was the result of a suicide attempt, and there's no evidence that North Korea mistreated the prisoner

Surre and Kim is such a great guy!

Plot twist! It did always strike me as weird that they would torture what is essentially their leverage in negotiations with the US. What possible information could they obtain from him? It would just make them look bad.

Had him in a work camp and they probably beat him too. North Koreans consider America one of their greatest enemies.

The people who really look bad in this are the parents. They repeatedly used their son's misfortunes to advance their political agenda.

Of course he attempted suicide. (I remember reading somewhere that the brain damage was consistent with either an OD or something else similar.) The parents are a pair of disgusting opportunistic assholes who spread lies that their kid's teeth was all in pieces. Before anyone wonders why I'm castigating them, it's not because I'm in support of NK but because their bullshit could've potentially started a deadly conflict.

[quote]it's not because I'm in support of NK but because their bullshit could've potentially started a deadly conflict.

Obama, is that you? When did the US decide to appease terrorist nations? I'm sure if it was someone you loved, you would want the US to do everything in their power to get your loved one back.

the US is at the top of the list when it comes to terrorist nations.

[quote]When did the US decide to appease terrorist nations?

Ask Trump.

I need to have Otto's sports coat dry cleaned so father can wear it for sympathy points when we make the media rounds.

[quote]Obama, is that you? When did the US decide to appease terrorist nations?

And now all the red tags in this thread are explained.

This poor soul suffered a great deal and died far too young. May he rest in eternal peace and bliss.

r10 one day you will have sex instead of watching anime.

Deplorable family who never thanked Democrat Bill Richardson for trying to negotiate Otto’s release.

[quote]And now all the red tags in this thread are explained.

Really.

What I don't get is that he had been made aware of just how precarious his position was. When he got there, they took them sight-seeing and made his group aware of what they think of imperialist Americans. Their war with South Korea has never been resolved, they were told, and the Americans were allied with their enemy.

His 44 year old roommate calmed his fears, but did remind him repeatedly that he should watch his step.

And so he steals that poster in their hotel, KNOWING that a janitor had been sentenced to life in prison for bumping into such a poster and accidentally causing it to fall to the floor. He clearly knew these were not normal people. He knew they really really loved their posters. And yet? He steals one? Just how stupid/entitled/arrogant was this idiot?

I just do not get that.

I totally buy the suicide theory and I do believe he was in utter despair at having ruined his life and having to face 15 years at hard labor, maybe even longer. But was he so stupid that he would risk taking that poster?

And by the way, I am no fan of his parents'. But I think you can cut them some slack for their deranged behavior. They have been through horrors enough.

[quote]But was he so stupid that he would risk taking that poster?

Some say that was a made up story. North Korea needed a hostage to leverage the US and they found one. Obama did absolutely nothing to help Warmbier.

[quote]And so he steals that poster in their hotel, KNOWING that a janitor had been sentenced to life in prison for bumping into such a poster and accidentally causing it to fall to the floor.

Well, I agree that the stealing of the poster (if it even happened) was really dumb, but it's not the same as the janitor being imprisoned for life.

NK is a slave state. The dictatorship survives on literally enslaving its population and so they are looking for ANY excuse, no matter how slight, to turn you into a convict, in other words, a state slave. That's different from what (may have) happened to Warmbier.

he didn't steal that poster. He got lost on the wrong floor and some idiot soldier who thought he could score points said he found him on that floor and made up the story about stealing the poster. Chances are that soldier was executed for doing that and causing all these problems..

What's extremely sad is if he could have held it together in the days immediately following his sentencing, he would have seen that, at worst, he was looking at many months of tedium. He was going to end up in that green-roofed house, bored out of his mind with all the other foreign prisoners, and would have been ransomed in a year or so.

He was an American and a upper middle class Jew. I’m sure the North Koreans went to town on him.

It was obvious from Day One that he suicided. The North Koreans stood to gain nothing by torturing a white American kid.

They didn't know he was Jewish for quite some time.

He looked positively ancient for a 21 year old

This is so tragic, but I really don't understand why anybody would want to visit NK, especially Americans.

R27, the same sick, morbid compulsion that draws Dataloungers to threads about pasta and lasagne.

He wasn't THAT demented, r28.

I have always believed, from the moment it became clear that he was dying/ a vegetable on his return, that it was the result of a botched suicide attempt.

I totally understand how he could have been desperate and unbalanced enough to attempt suicide in what must have been a hellhole by the standards of an American, even if it's true that he would likely have been released for one reason or another within a few months/ years.

And as has been pointed out, the North Koreans had absolutely nothing to gain from torturing him -- it reduced his value as a hostage, it made them look even worse in PR terms than they already looked, and no one, not even the most obsessive NK secret policeman, ever believed he had any information to divulge.

But it was good political capital!

[quote] Warmbier's brain damage was the result of a suicide attempt,

They tortured the poor fellow with endless nude images of Sarah Huckabee-Sanders.

You would attempt suicide, too!

This is video that allegedly shows him stealing the poster.

Otto's short life was a direct result of a series of poor decisions made by his parents and himself. A small dose of common sense could have prevented this quite easily. Case closed.

Are there any better shots r33? It's impossible to see that it's him.

Yes R35 and that's why many think it's faked.

From what I remember reading about the tours young people could book through NK, they were surprisingly cavalier and had a frat party atmosphere to them. Here's an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune about the tour Otto W. went on:

[quote]Beer-soaked "booze cruises" down North Korea's Taedong River. Scuba diving trips off the country's eastern coast. Saint Patrick's Day pub crawls in Pyongyang featuring drinking games with cheery locals.

[quote]Since 2008, the Young Pioneer Tours agency built up a business attracting young travelers with a competitively priced catalog of exotic-sounding, hard-partying adventures in one of the world's most isolated countries.

Buck would’ve never been in North Korea!

A bearded tourist dressed in the female national costume? Why hasn't there been an outrage about cultural appropriation?

Have the Warmbiers or Otto himself ever denied that he took that poster?

I mean the question only in the sense that yes, he may have been a stupid vandal, but come on. 15 years -life of hard labor for stealing a poster?

I'm not sure if there are any more, R33.

But from what I'm reading in the comments, he wasn't nabbed because of the video. He was nabbed when officials discovered the banner on him at the airport.

[quote]He was caught on the airport waiting for departure, not in the hotel. The stolen banner turned up in his suitcase. And this act of stealing CCTV record later confirmed his crime.

If that's true (he was caught at the airport), there's no reason why they would've needed to stage the video to frame him.

[quote] Why hasn't there been an outrage about cultural appropriation?

Because even the North Koreans have a better sense of humor than you, R39.

On the one hand, poor kid. On the other, what R34 said

I wasn't referring to North Koreans, r43, I was referring to all the SJWs who usually throw themselves over photos like this.

There are 5 counties I would consider visiting,,,,Canada, Ireland, UK, Australia and New Zealand. That's it.

There is no fucking need to go to North Korea, Thailand, Egypt, Mexico, etc I don't give a damn how "beautiful" the country supposedly is.

How positively dreary and boring, R46.

As my wise grandmother said, if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime. It’s not that hard people.

He was too distraught to see clearly that he would eventually be freed. What he did was very stupid, yes. But I still feel sorry for him, the descriptions in the article of his state when he was brought back is just really tragic.

R19 Obama didn't tell Otto to go to NK either. It's not his fault Otto when to a country with a dictator at the helm running the show. He chose to go there.

This is not Obamas fault period!! Even the state department tells Americans not to go to NK.

Personal responsibility. But I am sad that he lost his life.

R48, your grandma was Sammy Davis Jr.?

Who knows what being imprisoned in North Korea is like. Even if there wasn't physical torture, it still might be the kind of experience that could drive someone to suicide.

AN upper middle class Jew

R7, The US illegally bombed the sovereign nation of Iraq, waging an aggressive war over lies. Who's the "terrorist" nation?

I actually live here, and I have no idea if Otto Warmbier was Jewish. His parents were definitely upper middle class. I could drive past their house, if I wanted to (I don't). I don't understand how any of this matters. He was a kid, who was brutalized. Who gives a fuck about a poster? I don't. The decision to travel to North Korea was a bad one, for sure. Wyoming, Ohio has one of the best education systems in the state. He was a well-educated young guy. But please remember, this is a kid that we're talking about. Maybe a goofy, stupid kid, but just a kid. He didn't deserve this. If he killed himself, that's even sadder.

When the govt warns its citizens not to travel to certain countries especially one wher it is completely isolated from the rest of the world and there have been countless stories about how draconian their laws are, it's probably a good idea NOT to go. Where were his parents when he concocted the idea to go in the first place. He was a "bro" who thought it would be "cool" to show off to his "bros" that he went to North Korea and came back with a souvenir. Well when you make idiotic decisions, and I do mean IDIOTIC, you suffer the consequences.

I think it was tragic what happened to him, but he was NOT a "kid" he was over 21 and didn't need his parents' permission to go. The last I knew 18 year olds are old enough to vote, get married, drive, own a house, have children or join the military and possibly die in a foreign war. These same 18 year old people are not "kids" they are adult young men and women.

R60, I understand your point, honestly and respectfully. He was 22 years old, which isn't a kid. But I'm 56, and that's still a kid for me. I'm gay, and don't have much of a parental gene, but I still do have one. I would object if someone made a 'pedo alert' over a 22 year old. The truth is, my parental genes are activated (making me a silly frau, I guess) when a young person is in jeopardy. This young man had a bright future, and died a senseless death.

I wish they would take Ivanka or the Huckabeast hostage.

I felt bad hearing about his vegetative state when he returned home. If NK didn't physically torture him, they most certainly did mentally. They wore him down psychologically.

R58 nailed it. Otto was very young and young people are not known for making mature, brilliant decisions many times over. He never had a chance to grow up and become his real self.

Wasn’t it the second time he visited?

Boys and girls, do yourselves a favor, and don't go to North Korea!

I don’t think he tried to commit suicide, and I don’t think he stole that banner. I do think they decided to detain him simply because he was an American, however I do find it strange how emotional he was during the press conference, and maybe he was either threatened, drugged, or tortured. It was alleged back when he was first released that they may have waterboarded him and it went wrong putting him in a coma. A lot of what the North Koreans do doesn’t make sense to outsiders, and they might have decided to make an example out of Warmbier for whatever reason.

Welcome to the DL, Kim Jong Un! We are all sure that your beautiful country is truly a workers’ paradise.

Now that you know about all the treasures available on the internet, might you want to consider allowing your devoted and loving people access to it as well?

We all know that NK is a brutal dictatorship where even relatives of the dictator can be executed for the pettiest shit.

But can someone please give examples of the country having a history of brutalizing Western captives like something out of Midnight Express? Again, like I said in an earlier response, my feelings have nothing to do with trying to exonerate NK of wrongdoing. It's just that I'm very uneasy with people being so gung-ho for starting a dangerous conflict with NK that they're resorting to yellow journalistic tactics of painting a picture that Americans are getting arbitrarily grabbed, are waterboarded and are getting their arms broken and teeth smashed in with pliers (which is what Otto W's parents claimed happened).

You don't want to fuck around with this kind of stuff. Americans have gotten off light with instigating wars based on nonsense. What happens is that we bomb the shit out of civilians and watch it all from the comfort of our homes while surfing on Facebook and eating Big Macs. But as 9/11 and the crisis involving Guam showed, we're no longer that invulnerable.

"Make an example of Warmbier", r67 -- for what purpose? It certainly wouldn't make sense for the North Koreans to torture Warmbier when they knew full well that he had no useful information of any kind. Waterboarding is used to break a prisoner down to get info from him. Warmbier was weeping even before his sentence was announced -- he would have told them anything, but again, he knew nothing.

Of course they detained him because he was an American; foreign prisoners are useful pawns in negotiating for all sorts of things. But they're most useful when they can be released in decent health ("Look! This person was a spy, but we treated them well! All those stories about torture and famine are lies, lies, lies!").

The guy was a mess from the get-go, and although the conditions inside any NK prison are undoubtedly brutal, citizens of Western countries are still reputed to get less awful treatment there than Koreans do. So the most logical conclusion is that he had a complete breakdown, tried to hang himself, and by the time they cut him down it was too late.

Some people are born without wisdom...people try to give them good advice but they refuse to listen. Trump is like that.

Why would anyone name their kid, Otto?

I heard they raped him during the interrogation as a way to assert North Korea’s dominance over the United States.

[quote]The guy was a mess from the get-go, and although the conditions inside any NK prison are undoubtedly brutal, citizens of Western countries are still reputed to get less awful treatment there than Koreans do. So the most logical conclusion is that he had a complete breakdown, tried to hang himself, and by the time they cut him down it was too late.

Exactly. His press conference was so cringey, not because I was unsympathetic to what he was going through, but because he came across as both unbalanced and theatrical at the same time.

He was just queening out at the press conference.

We've had others return from NK incarceration -- what have they said about how they were handled?

[quote] I do think they decided to detain him simply because he was an American

Why? Many other American and western tourists have traveled to NK before, and probably afterwards, without any incident?

R77: He was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tensions had been getting worse between North Korea and the South for a while at that point.

He was just unlucky...

Since deplorables love to create false conspiracy theories about everything Democrat, and they have hijacked this case as their own, we should turn the tables on them.

I think Otto is a crisis actor who has never actually died! The Deep State hired him for a false flag operation, giving Trump the opportunity to declare fase war on North Korea. But Trump and Kim Jong Un are colluding.. they are part of the NWO illuminati!

R79, lol! It would be funny to use the Alex Jones Republicans' level of crazy back onto them. I wonder how they would react?

This is the first I heard about the poster being found at the airport. Kinda makes me think it may be true. Also at the trail he was pleading for his life and he ends up dying.

Wasn’t there rumors Otto was a spy?(. The way his parents cozy up to Putin’s Bitch is disgusting.

It seems odd that he died right after he got home. I don't get it, because he was not on life support.

The GQ article ref’ed at OP doesn’t say anything about the poster being found in his stuff at the airport. It says the guys at passport control scrutinized his passport for a long time then eventually detained him. Unless he had the poster tucked into his passport, doesn’t sound like it was part of his being seized at the airport.

Btw the article also doesn’t say other things being asserted here. Otto’s supposed suicide attempt is just a theory advanced by the writer, who doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about as he 1) takes as truth the otherwise-unsubstantiated word of NK hacks on the timing of Otto’s injury and 2) dismisses claims of torture as being unsupported by other evidence even while acknowledging that the US has almost no intelligence sources on NK and so very little ability to compile such supporting evidence.

The only evidence presented of Otto’s purported suicide attempt is that three past detainees killed themselves .... although strangely all of them after returning home to the US.

R58 and R64 Otto was not a child period!! He was a grown man who made really poor choices with his life. I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt.

He knew what he was doing by going to NK! Why go there? I feel bad that choice caused him his life. But actions have consequences too.

I think the only reason people refer to Otto as a child, is because he's an upper middle class white person. When if it was a minority the sympathy and empathy along with the benefit of the doubt wouldn't be there.

And we all no it's true.

I don't think he was a spy, I think he was working-- or trying to work-- with the cladestine Christian groups in China that help North Koreans escape. He probably was clumsy about approaching them or said something in earshot of people he should have been wary of, so they threw the book at him. I work on that part of the world-- but that's just my theory.

Generally the North Koreans are a lot more interested in incarcerating Korean Americans. There's no real reason they would want to mess with a white kid from what I know.

^ that’s a good theory & even sort of supported by the NK story that he took the poster to bring back as a souvenir for his church youth group or whatever - except wasn’t he Jewish? AFAIK Jewish guys who are involved in intl human rights work don’t usually do it through a Christian framework, but maybe they do if that’s the only option.

He was just a young innocent Jewish gay guy who went looking for some strange on the wrong floor.

I don't know why people are saying Otto was Jewish. He was an evangelical Christian.

Only the douchiest of douchebags wear bow ties. Good riddance bro.

He seemed a little on the flamboyant side, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was gay. I don’t know, whenever I see pictures of him he comes across as a spoilt momma’s boy. I’ve met types like him, they are completely clueless to the realities that surround them when they are taken out of their cosseted little worlds. I can well see him breaking down like a little bitch when the truth of his situation hit home.

After seeing that picture of him wearing the bow tie he was either gay or a complete asswipe.

So gays look like douchbags and complete asswipes to dl?

That explains a lot.

He was not an evangelical Christian. The North Koreans claimed that he was (they arrest anyone who evangelizes), but he was in fact Jewish.

His family just didn't mention it before he was released, because, as their lawyer said, why would they antagonize the North Koreans by disputing their claims when they were just trying to get him out of there?

The GQ article says he was Jewish, seemed to be a popular, decent guy. Western prisoners were kept in a relatively (for NK) decent place and in physically decent shape because they could be exchanged for foreign cash. The medical examiner said his teeth were normal. Despite being comatose for months, he had no bed sores which indicated a higher level of care than most USFacilities could manage. The video of the poster thief could've been anyone, it was such bad quality. The article didn't say much about the tour group company whose motto is basically "get shitfaced in dangerous places".

A lot of misinformation about this sad story.

Yes, I used the word decent three times.

They must have done something to him. It’s bizarre how he completely broke down at the press conference. I can’t see someone breaking down to that extent without some kind of prior threat or intimidation. He was supposed to be fairly intelligent and well educated, so he must have known that all he needed to do was keep his cool and wait for his release to be negotiated.

I don't know about that. The GQ article says Warmbier didn't even realize the level of hostility between the US and NK until he actually got into the country. I think he was sheltered and clueless and thought going to NK would be like going to Cuba, which he'd already visited. He had no idea how to cope with what was probably some pretty terrible mental abuse at the hands of the NK interrogators and thought he was really going to be sentenced to hard labor for 15 years. There was nothing left in him to hold on until he could see the true state of things: That he was a human bargaining chip that would be warehoused in a reasonable (for NK) level of comfort until he could be bargained away for political concessions.

The Myth of Jewish Intelligence.

North Koreans are like Russians. They make a convenient boogeyman for some. Blame them for everything and hope the public swallows it.

I wonder if the North Koreans didn’t decide to use Warmbier as an American prop for torture. They were well known for both hosting and helping to train terrorist groups back in the day, including the PLA, RED ARMY FACTION and the SHINING PATH. It wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t training some jihadist group at the time, and, with Warmbier being an American, offered him up for interrogation. I can certainly see a group of Islamic jihadists deciding to waterboard Warmbier as payback for what was happening to detainees in Gauntanamo.

[quote]I don't know why people are saying Otto was Jewish. He was an evangelical Christian.

Traveling is dangerous. My daughter almost died on a beach in Guatemala when a rogue wave grabbed her. That would have been my fault. I was stupid to take her to a 3rd world country and even worse, to a strange beach I had been warned about. What is wrong with rich people? They believe the US is a magic genie that protects them no matter where they go or what they do. Warmbier's death is no sadder to me than any other 21 year old, but certainly not sadder than a 21 year old who dies of a disease or accident they had nothing to do with.

[quote]Warmbier's death is no sadder to me than any other 21 year old

Then you have something wrong with you.

Why would the parents lie about his teeth having been removed?

For me the answer can only be that he did indeed attempt suicide and his family have been privately warned of the likelihood of this by the State Dept. But as his Trump-inclined parents consider suicide something shameful, they are making up these gruesome details to influence media coverage so that Otto will be remembered simply as a heroic victim of torture, not as the more morally complex figure of a person who - in some people's eyes - took 'the easy way out'.

In East Asian cultures 'face' and dignity is highly important, and people can become very vengeful and angry if they lose face in public. This is why North Korea made up that ridiculous story about botulism rather than telling the truth about the suicide attempt: because if it came out that they had allowed their star prisoner to seriously harm himself, it would mean they had lost control of their own prison: and this would be very shameful for the regime to admit. This is probably also why the family didn't make more of Otto's Jewish faith as in the link R109 posted, perhaps on US government advice: because to publicly contradict the regime's story - which Otto had already 'confessed' to - with such a detail would also be to make the regime lose face and jeopardise future negotiations for his release.

Yup, r112. I wondered if the parents would react angrily to Trump's fake summit with KJU and no repercussions re their son but no. Still supporters.

Trump even said without Otto there would be no agreement with NK. I guess to make parents believe he didn’t die in vain.

I actually went on a North Korean tour with China Travel Service back in 2008. Admittedly, I'm not American, which changes the risk calculation somewhat, and Kim Jong-Il rather than his son was in power. But I never felt unsafe there, with the obvious proviso that the understanding was clear that I should follow the directions of the tour guides at all times. Of course, the focus of that tour was on seeing the cultural sites rather than getting drunk and out of control as this Young Pioneers tour seems to have been.

Oh for fuck's sake.

I've been to North Korea. Yes, it's creepy as hell but you know that going in. You don't just turn up a realise - "Ooh this place is different."

You don't want to get shit faced there. You want to watch what you say to the guards. You don't want to act like an American douche. 99.9% of us go in and get out. There is no looming threat if you behave well. There was absolutely no reason to kidnap him for political purposes, he clearly did something illegal.

I believe he got drunk and took the poster. American arrogance at work again.

As for his age - there are English teachers and translators and tour guides LIVING in North Korea who are 20-22 years old who manage to live day to day and not act like idiots.

I don't think you all realise how many tours go through N.K every single day. This wasn't a one off. Hundreds of tourists arrive every day and leave every day.

Exactly r115. You don't go to North Korea to party.

His dad didn’t say his teeth were removed, he said they looked like they’d been ‘rearranged with pliers.’ That means the teeth were no longer lined up straight like before.

No statements or evidence to the contrary exists. The attention-whore medical examiner cunt who called a press conference to dispute the parents’ comments (!!!) said his teeth were not missing and looked normal. Since she didn’t know him before, she had nothing to offer on whether his teeth had been straight before and now were misaligned.

Bottom teeth get moved around and messed up pretty easily, including from things like biting down on a peach pit, so his crooked teeth aren’t necessarily a sign of anything untoward. They could’ve even been messed up by attempts to render medical aid quickly through a tube down his throat or something.

But what is this campaign of bullshit against these people? The only thing they’ve done wrong is potentially provide the braying orange ass with the chance do and say things that aren’t completely stupid. That’s why they’re now subject to shit like idiot know-nothing GQ writers trying to attack their integrity. Sad!

Poor Otto, we may never know what REALLY happened to him.

RIP Otto.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the team of trained doctors and a dentist that examined Otto are capable of telling the difference between a set of teeth that have been rearranged with pliers, and one that hasn't. They detected no signs of trauma at all. Perhaps they felt that the batshit crazy parents shouldn't be allowed to flood the airwaves with bullshit when it comes to such a sensitive topic.

It's also notable they withdrew co-operation from the GQ article on learning that it mentioned the suicide theory.

The parents never mentioned that Otto was gay, either, or that he had a serious relationship with his boyfriend (pictured above).

I’m not going to give his parents shit, even though I’m tempted. I’ve seen people lose their kids, up close and personal, and you cannot hold them responsible for what they say or do immediately after losing a child. From what I understand, it’s the single most painful thing that can ever happen to anyone, and I believe that’s true.

May he RIP. The poor guy did not deserve to die like that.

I agree- Otto was a crisis actor. I'll bet he's alive and still living somewhere in Ohio (probably in Jim Jordan's district). Don't show me a coffin & some staged funeral and expect to FOOL ME!

Is there any evidence he was gay beyond the bowtie? If so please provide so I can go from being 100 % Team Otto to 110 %

[quote]But from what I'm reading in the comments, he wasn't nabbed because of the video. He was nabbed when officials discovered the banner on him at the airport. The stolen banner turned up in his suitcase. And this act of stealing CCTV record later confirmed his crime.

In Otto's (totally scripted) press conference, he said that while he did remove the poster from the wall, he immediately realized it was "too big and heavy" so he panicked and decided to put it back (massive violent eye roll). If you haven't watched his entire press conference, you really must--it's the most ludicrous story you'll ever hear and will literally have you laughing out loud at its ridiculousness.

Otto Warmbier = CRISiS ACTOR!

I just saw him working as an extra on Meryl Streep's latest film and he flashed me the illuminati hand signal!

This line in the article was pretty cringey as well, " A meticulous planner, he filled a calendar hung on his dorm wall with handwritten commitments: from assignments to dates to bringing differently abled friends to basketball games." Differently abled, ffs. Also, I think his parents probably just removed his feeding tube or had him given a fatal morphine dose. I don't see why else he would suddenly die. And again, is it protocol to just hoist someone under their arms and have someone else grab their legs when you are removing them from a G4 medical transport plane? that was always so odd to me, looked like he was carried passed out from a frat party.

I too thought it was bizarre that he was carried off the plane that way.

No way in hell is this OLD, haggard looking motherfucker 21 years old. More like 41.

Crisis actor is right!

Riiiiiight. If he was a crisis actor, don't ya think NK would've responded with something along the lines of, "Who the fuck is Otto Warmbier?" Actually something tells me you don't do much thinking.

He looks like a BOSSY BOTTOM.

Dear on the internet you can find someone’s correct age in 2 seconds.

Not to sound like a heartless dick, but the videos of him histrionically crying and carrying on really are cringe. Don't get me wrong, I have/had sympathy for him and I understood he was afraid of what was going to happen to him, but come on, there are beheading and hostage vids where the victims (some much younger than Otto) still manage to remain composed and dignified in their very last moments.

Was the poster who mentioned that Otto was gay being serious? Because as someone else mentioned, with his dress sense, he's either flamboyantly gay or the most obnoxious, insufferable douche to ever walk the planet.

The article said he was in love with his "beautiful soulmate"girlfriend.

The coroner found no signs of torture yet the parents kept peddling it. While it’s possible some forms of torture would not be evident 15 months later, these parents double down on their stupidity, and refuse to have an autopsy.

I always thought they suspected (or knew) Otto tried to kill himself, and they called “torture” North Korea detaining him and giving him a lengthy sentence that then drove him to do it. Understandable they were gried stricken, but the blame game against the Obama administration and praise for Trump was utter bullshit. The final three Americans detained during Trump’s presidency were in North Korea longer THAN Otto. But they were ethnic Koreans so who cares, right? Several detainees were released during Obama thanks to that administration. There are no diplomatic ties. It can’t happen instantly.

Otto would have been released within a year or two as it’s always been for past Americans. For those of you asking why Otto died so soon after his releasE, it could have been as simple as the long trip home pushing his condition over. North Korea may have even agreed to send him back then if he was deteriorating in those final days, weeks, and they didn’t want him dying on their soil. One doctor theorized that even a change in meds from what he got in North Korea to what he got in Ohio could have disrupted Otto’s already precarious state.

It’s also possible his feeding tube was removed, and the parents didn’t want to say. Maybe another reason to decline an autopsy? Didn’t want the public to frown on them removing his feeding tube so soon? I would not blame them for that one. There was absolutely no hope for recovery.

*grief stricken, ugh. DL wouldn’t let me stroll up to proofread. Again.

his feeding tube was removed r134, at least his parents were right to do that. They didn't try to pull any Jahi McMath shit, the doctor said he was never coming back so they had it removed. I agree it's pure fuckery that they implied that he was tortured and that it was Obama's fault. They were literally willing to risk many lives to start a fucking war with this country when they knew that things were not as they presented them. That't why I hated that "Disappeared" show on the eps where it was obvious the person committed suicide but their fucking parents had monies spent and hours logged looking for them or their killer.

I agree that the parents' actions were dubious and sketchy and the article made a convincing argument that Trump et al were promoting the torture angle for political gain. However, I don't think the article had a lot of evidence to back up the fact that he likely tried to commit suicide. As I recall, the evidence was something to the effect of, other people have tried to commit suicide in captivity, he was likely mentally abused, he seemed mentally fragile when he made his appearances. Am I forgetting any other important evidence to support the suicide theory?

Yes r137, you're forgetting the most important part, both sides of his brain were equally starved? damaged? like someone who cut all their oxygen off at once, not like someone who was beaten or taken ill slowly.

R138 Thanks, you're right. That is important. Can that happen as the result of anything else besides suicide, like an accident or something else? As I recall, the article concluded that it was suicide because the brain scan showed that this happened very shortly after his trial. Is that the connection?

r139 Yes, it happened pretty quickly after the trial, the hospital he was in said they had received him like a week or so after he was jailed.

R140 I reread that section and I guess that kind of brain injury can be caused by other things like an accident or an allergic reaction, but the author concludes it is likely suicide because it happened shortly after his trial. I'm not saying the theory is meritless and it is in fact credible, but in an otherwise very meticulously argued article, I think that was still the weakest part for me.

Yeah I mean it could have been something else but the fact his parents weirdly lied about his teeth being rearranged, and the hospital saying he had been there pretty much since the trial makes me think it was a suicide attempt too.

R142 It's odd the details we find personally persuasive, but what you just said there, about his parents' motives for lying about his teeth being rearranged is convincing to me and it's a connection I don't think the article explicitly makes. Of course, they don't know for sure either whether it was suicide, but they might suspect and that may be a reason they acted the way they did.

I hope someone writes a book on what really happened.

R144, the only guy who knew the real truth about was Otto himself, and he ded, son.

[quote]Not to sound like a heartless dick, but the videos of him histrionically crying and carrying on really are cringe. Don't get me wrong, I have/had sympathy for him and I understood he was afraid of what was going to happen to him, but come on, there are beheading and hostage vids where the victims (some much younger than Otto) still manage to remain composed and dignified in their very last moments.

You do realize he was acting during that press conference, right? Someone clearly fed him a (ridiculous) script and told him to recite it that way for whatever reason. The beheading/hostage vids you mention did not take place in North Korea, so you can't compare them.

R146 Yes, he was obviously directed to act that way. It was their way of showing the world a cowering, undignified and humiliated American.

R141 medical examination on his arrival home showed no hairline fractures or signs that he had endured beatings in captivity. For me the most compelling evidence that it was a suicide attempt is that the North Koreans have never been known to mistreat US captives (at least physically) and it makes no sense for them to do so: they knew Otto didn't really have any information they wanted, and he was worth a lot to them as a bargaining chip alive and nothing when dead.

The article discusses his lack of bedsores, suggesting that far from being tortured he enjoyed round-the-clock care in North Korea: they would not have wanted a US prisoner to die on their soil, and would not have wanted to admit that they lost control and allowed him the time and space to make a suicide attempt.

North Korea is not a normal place, never has been. Stop saying 'they wouldn't be interested in a white American", "tourists go through there all time." They're freaks, all you have to do is read a little. For Chrissakes they had frogmen land on South Korean beaches to kidnap kids and drag them back to Pyongyang. They literally kidnapped the major South Korean actress and the leading director of the 1980s, and kept them for Kim Jong Ils entertainment. Do you people know anything about the Puebla incident ? Do you not know they execute their disgraced generals with artilllert? What part of crazy do you not get ?

and he would do it there. OP is retarded.

R149 Think about how the Kim family has kept itself in power when so many other totalitarian regimes have collapsed in the past thirty years. They are not irrational, far from it. They might be brutal and utterly immoral, but not irrational. They know just how far they can push and also who they need to keep on side (read: China).

However, this narrative of 'the North Koreans are insane maniacs' suits both your government and theirs, so that it why it is being fed to you non-stop.

There’s a rumour I read on another site that’s been posted above by someone else. Anyway, it’s been alleged that the North Koreans were giving specialist training to some Islamic terror group (I forgot which one) and Otto was offered up by the North Koreans as a kind of test dummy for interrogation techniques. Apparently some of the members of this group decided to waterboard Warmbier, as a kind of revenge for what had happened to suspected Muslim terrorists in American custody.

However they went too far, and Warmbier ended up nearly dying. That’s how he ended up in the coma, the North Koreans for whatever reason decided to torture Warmbier in the worst way possible.

Really r152? And they did this a week after his trial? Cause that's how long he was in that hospital.

Why would they not give the ISIS trainees one of the thousands of other, anonymous people they had wrongly imprisoned? Shit they could have given 100 of them, I don't see them doing it with one of their high profile ones.

They could have done it any time, r153. I think they decided to use him because he was American, r154.

R152 = paranoid, pill-popping Frau

No I don't buy it, Isis are notorious attention whores, they would have video taped that shit and demanded whoever's release.

What I thought was unusual Otto”# father said when they picked him up he was doing something that he had to send the women away. I wonder what that was.

He changed his diaper maybe r158? I don't trust anything his Ed Smart looking dad says.

R152 so now the N. Koreans and ISIS are in cahoots? Absurd BS.

Did I say Isis, r160. I don’t know why people think this couldn’t have happened. The North Koreans are well known for being capable of anything. They kidnapped and abducted people from all over the world, including South Korea, Japan and Europe. They’ve also trained as well as sponsored terrorist groups in the past.

It’s perfectly possibly that they could have provided training to an Islamic terrorist group of some kind. They had quite close contacts with Pakistan at one point. They also had joint agreements with both the Pakistani military and the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI. The ISI (inter-service intelligence) especially were well known for sponsoring terrorism, and virtually created the Taliban.

There’s been rumours for years that Pakistan has been cooperating with North Korea on nuclear weapons and rocket systems. The ISI was also supposed to have sent special groups to North Korea for training, and that could have been anyone.

FFS R161, Otto was incredibly valuable to them: a clean-cut, telegenic young guy from a swing state. Look at how much they were able to get out of Trump in return for the release of the three Korean-Americans. And you think they'd just let ISIS use him for target practice?

Furthermore, r152/ r161, how would any group, Islamic or otherwise, be able to test interrogation techniques on someone who doesn't have any information to pry out of him? Warmbier was a hot mess; he would have told them anything he knew (which, for strategic purposes, was nothing) the minute they asked him.

So how would any putative terrorists have been able use Warmbier to test if their "interrogation techniques" were effective?

Nope, that theory is nonsense.

He was an idiot for going to North Korea. Why would anybody want to go to North Korea? So they can brag about having gone there? I guess he and his fellow travelers were pretty puffed up with themselves for having vacationed in that lunatic country. Idiots.

I read that a NK GUARD had to go to prison camp with his entire family for just smoking in a non smoking area.

The statement that he was injured right after his trial came from NK staff at the facility that claimed to have received him then. Any such NK staff is a prisoner of the regime like everyone else there, can only speak to an outsider in the presence of minder, and will only say what the regime wants him to say. It’s laughable that this statement is being taken as any evidence of truth.

Also there was no lie about his teeth. Did anyone read the article? Or anything else about this incident? Bizarre.

R165 no offense but you sound touchingly naive. NK defectors have spoken of multiple generations of families being murdered because one of them didn’t laugh hard enough at one of Dear Leader’s jokes and so on. The people there are so cowed that it’s hard to imagine anyone would knowingly smoke in a non-smoking area.

Yeah r166, I read the article and his healed up trach made it seem like he had been there for awhile. Also, there was a lie about his teeth, did you read it? His dad said they were rearranged, two doctors said they weren't, and these were American doctors so dear leader didn't get to them. What do you think happened? Unless you're the ISIS guy, then I already know what you think.

Oh dear, the supposed lie was that his bottom teeth were removed, which was never said - it was said that they were rearranged, which means crooked. Apparently they were straight when he left & crooked when he was carted back. There’s no evidence to dispute that and no reason to doubt it. The medical examiner didn't dispute that his teeth were crooked, she said they weren't missing (tho no one had said they were). Bottom teeth move have narrow, shallow roots and move easily, especially in someone with less than optimal blood flow as was clearly the state with poor Otto. What happened to his teeth? Could’ve been anything including an accidental bite onto a bone (if he was one of the few people in NK who had access to meat) or impact during attempts to revive him, or any manner of physical mistreatment. There was also the matter of a large scar on his foot, which the medical examiner confirmed.

The Swedish embassy intercedes on behalf of Americans detained in North Korea. Obviously there is not much they can do, but I wonder if they told Otto that Americans always go home within a year or two, sometimes it’s weeks to months, regardless of the sentence. Maybe that would have helped him. Perhaps that was still too much for 22-year-old Otto to face though. Accidental overdose is also a possibility. Despite being young and healthy, if you’re already stressed to the hilt, not eating or sleeping right, it could be easier to accidentally OD. Even botulism + sleeping pill could not totally be ruled out.

The only American detainee in recent years who claimed repeated physical abuse is Robert Park. Other detainees have reported being kept awake for long periods, bad cells in the early days. I think Euna Lee and Laura Ling mentioned being smacked during interrogations. Also rocks in their rice. I don’t know if that was purposeful of just shitty food.

No mistreatment has been reported that could suggest NK would do something to hurt someone to result in PVS like Otto. Except from Park. His accounts have never been substantiated. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but he seems very troubled (and before detention was obsessed with treatment in North Korea—that’s how he got caught; he crossed the border on purpose to get caught).

Yes, there was the Pueblo incident and the prisoners had it badly. All American detainees since the 90s have appeared to be kept in generally good health in the long term. NK seems especially concerned with treating older detainees better, but yeah, I don’t buy they’d do anything on purpose for Otto to end up in a PVS.

I misspoke in R134. I said the three recently released detainees were in NK longer than Otto. One of them was, but what I meant was the three were in NK longer than Otto when he went into a coma. The reason I put it that way is becausee the parents vilified Obama and praised Trump (as did morons weighin in on this case). However, if any of the remaining three had been put in a coma, no one would be saying, “how dare Trump not get them out sooner before this could happen!”

Just wanted to clear that up. I get parents wishing something could have been done to prevent the tragedy, but they weren’t using logic. Heck, prevention could have been Otto learning how fucked up NK is and pass on some flashy ad for a tour.

I’m watching a YT series from Indigo Traveler. He’s from NZ and just went to NK for eight days and took a ton of footage. NK hates America much more, but they’ve detained other westerners, including at least one Australian. Indigo Traveler has good content, but damn, living more an an edge than I could.

R82, if you read OP's linked article, you would know that his parents had his feeding tube removed and he died 6 days later.

Them torturing their foreign prisoners never made sense to me, when those are their best leverage in negotiations with other countries.

For god's sake, you people with all the questions would do well to actually read OP's article. The parents had the feeding tube removed and stayed by his side during the six days it took for him to die. Without even knowing this, it was obvious to me when he died that life support had been withdrawn.

When he arrived in the US, his sister ran from the plane screaming because of his non-stop animalistic howling. His head was shaved and his body contorted from being in the coma so long. He was not the Otto they were expecting.

The medical examiner made a point of holding a press conference to correct the information the parents were providing, which was incorrect. Why did the dad say his teeth looked like they had been rearranged "with pliers"? That was pulled straight out of his ass.

I think Otto did attempt suicide fairly soon after being sentenced. He was a sheltered, emotional young man whose life of privilege couldn't save him from the prospect of 15 years hard labor in a prison in a country totally foreign to him. As far as he could see, his life was already over.

The parents have endured an unimaginable nightmare, but they would do well to not try to re-write history and start a war over their son's ill-advised actions.

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