North Korean hospital boss rejects Otto Warmbier torture charges
- KCNA report came hours after Voice of America carried a story on a lawsuit filed by Warmbier’s parents alleging their son was tortured
The director of the North Korean hospital that treated Otto Warmbier, the US student who died after being held in the country, rejected fresh allegations that he was tortured in custody.
The 22-year-old was jailed in the North for more than a year and was released in a comatose state in 2017 but died soon after returning home.
The exact cause of his death remains unknown but a recent US media report claimed there was new evidence that he was beaten by the regime.
The director of the Pyongyang Friendship Hospital – which treated Warmbier – slammed the claims as a “total distortion of the truth” in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency late Saturday.
“The American doctors who came to the DPRK to help Warmbier’s repatriation acknowledged that his health indicators were all normal and submitted a letter of assurance to our hospital,” it said, using North Korea’s official acronym.
“Now the question is: what is the ulterior motive of those American doctors trying to make a different story at this point in time with regard to the cause of Warmbier’s death,” the statement added.