McCain: Kim-Jong regime ‘murdered’ Otto Warmbier
WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the North Korean regime is responsible for the death of 22-year-old American college student Otto Warmbier.
“Let us state the facts plainly: Otto Warmbier, an American citizen, was murdered by the Kim Jong-un regime,” McCain said in a statement on Monday.
“In the final year of his life, he lived the nightmare in which the North Korean people have been trapped for 70 years: forced labor, mass starvation, systematic cruelty, torture, and murder,” he explained.
Warmbier’s family confirmed Otto’s death in a statement Monday afternoon. He had been released from North Korean captivity in a comatose state six days earlier. Staff at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center tried to resuscitate Otto but the patient ultimately succumbed to a heart attack, according to doctors.
Pyongyang maintains that Warmbier succumbed to botulism. Doctors did not discover any symptoms of the illness.
Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the Pyongyang airport for having allegedly stolen a communist propaganda poster. Two months later, the regime sentenced to him 15 months of hard labor.
The North Korean state reportedly operates penal colonies reminiscent of the Soviet gulag system in which dissidents are imprisoned.
North Korea is internationally regarded as a rogue state and is in violation of numerous United Nations resolutions condemning Pyongyang for its provocative nuclear proliferation efforts and its rampant human rights abuses.
North Korea also is a state-sponsor of international terrorism. Pyongyang actively assisted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s nuclear ambitions until those plans were halted by a 2007 Israeli airstrike.
This article is republished with permission from Talk Media News
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