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N. Korea sentences American to 15 years labor (Up: Otto Warmbier has died)

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C

cameron

Member
Vilix said:
Will there be an autopsy?
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There was an autopsy planned, with the initial results slated to be released today/tomorrow, but the family just requested the coroner to decline.


JUST IN: Coroner declines at family's request to perform autopsy of Otto Warmbier, American student previously held captive in North Korea

— Reuters Top News‏ (@Reuters) June 20, 2017​



From earlier this afternoon, Reuters: Coroner examining death of U.S. student released by North Korea
Preliminary findings from the autopsy of a University of Virginia student who was held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months will be released on Tuesday or Wednesday, the office of the Ohio coroner performing the examination said.

Otto Warmbier died at the age of 22 in a Cincinnati hospital on Monday, just days after the North Korean government sent him home in a coma and suffering from extensive brain damage, according to the U.S. doctors who treated him.

His body was transferred to the Hamilton County Coroner's office later that day, Don Jasper, its chief investigator, said on Tuesday. The coroner, Lakshmi Kode Sammarco, is expecting to release initial results from her examination later on Tuesday or on Wednesday, Jasper said.
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G

Golden_Pigeon

Banned
Brazil said:
Bravery? What?

Not one person visiting NK is going there to "help" anyone, unless they're James Franco. They're going there to enjoy some bizarre propaganda tour so they can come back and tell chicks how cool they are for doing so, all the while financing the government that uses that money to perpetrate some of mankind's biggest crimes.

I'm not saying I disagree with the rest of your post entirely, but do not twist the purpose of these NK visits into something altruistic.
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How do you know that ? I don't deny it's a possibility, there is no way to know that some people like missionaries or humanitarian workers or journalists go there to actually help those people. I've seen numerous "inside documentary" and they don't hide very well the fact that it's a insane dictatorship oppressing to the people. You have more credibility to speak about it if you actually went there, i can totally see somebody going there in order to make the situation better now, maybe i am overly optimistic.
 
G

Golden_Pigeon

Banned
Pluto said:
It's different because rape victims don't book a trip to rape land where countless people are constantly raped by the government with no foreign power stopping them and then step out of the no rape zone.

I'm sorry what happened to this guy, he was a young man who didn't deserve to die over a fucking poster but he did go to North Korea willingly and broke the rules, which is one of the dumbest things a person can do.
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How many times it's necessary to repeat that we don't have any element to actually prove he broke the rules ?
 
K

KillLaCam

Banned
cpp_is_king said:
Something just occurred to me.

Thailand actually has the strictest lese-majeste laws in the entire world. A few years ago a guy was sentenced to 10 years prison for making a joke about the king's dog on social media. In fucking Thailand. I mean, the difference obviously is that a) they don't torture the prisoners, and b) they are a bit more lenient towards foreigners who break these laws.

So, the fact that he got arrested for something so utterly stupid is, I guess, not unique to North Korea. The fact that he died for it is, of course.
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Yeah that Thailand situation is pretty common too
 
C

Chococat

Member
LostCaress said:
It's actually not that hard to go to NK, and the chances of getting arrested randomly are actually pretty low.
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Hard may be the wrong word.

The average America does not have the money nor the documentation on hand to fly halfway around the planet for a vacation. It boarders South Korean and China- both have there obstacles to enter North Korea. And being surround by the ocean.

So hard in my description means, you just can't walk into North Korea without minimal planning and fiances. It's "harder" than say crossing into Canada.

Getting arrest is pretty low, if you follow orders. Pretty high if you act like a typical American tourists who thinks world revolves around them or Korea needs prisoner for political reasons.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
zelas said:
So? He was murdered. Not found in a ditch.
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His cause of death is basically North Korea being a shithole with a habit of abusing prisoners. An autopsy isn't going to tell them anything to help them find inner peace. He went to North Korea and they killed him; there's no detail there that will do anything other than cause them more pain.
 
P

perfectchaos007

Member
Did any of you guys watch Otto's testimony? It seems clear to me that North Korea gave him a script to recite that made up some story about how he planned to discourage the North Korean spirit by stealing that poster and bringing it back to his hometown church for a bounty of $1000. He was probably told that if he gave the scripted testimony, he wouldn't be killed.
 
A

Any Questions

Member
Am bumping this as couldn't find separate thread for this update.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41409878

Parents give statement on the condition they found their son. Thing is this is disputed by the coroner who says otherwise. Our man in the WH is tweeting the parents story...

The parents of Otto Warmbier have shared horrific details of his condition when he arrived home from North Korea.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier told Fox and Friends that the North Koreans were "terrorists" who had "systematically tortured" their son.
The US student was jailed in Pyongyang in 2016 for stealing a hotel sign.
He was released on medical grounds in June this year but arrived home seriously ill and died days later.
North Korea has always denied mistreating Mr Warmbier. They say he contracted botulism while in prison but US doctors found no trace of this.

In their first interview since his death, they told Fox news that they "felt it was time to tell the truth about the condition that Otto was in".
US doctors had previously described him as being in a state of "unresponsive wakefulness", but the Warmbiers said calling this a coma was "unfair".
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Mr Warmbier said when they saw his son he was "moving around, and jerking violently, making these howling and inhuman sounds".
His head was shaved, he was blind and deaf, his arms and legs were "totally deformed" and he had a huge scar on his foot, he said. It "looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth".
"Otto was systematically tortured and intentionally injured by Kim and his regime. This was no accident," said Mr Warmbier.
He also said his son had been abandoned by his family, his country and the world and that the government had given them no information about his death
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Mrs Warmbier said North Korea sent him home because "they didn't want him to die on their soil".
The family refused a post-mortem examination because they thought he had suffered enough and "I wasn't going to let him out of my sight," she said.
She also pleaded with people not to go to North Korea, saying it was "playing into" Pyongyang's propaganda. US citizens are now banned from travelling to North Korea.

However, a local newspaper in the US has disputed the allegations made by the Warmbiers.

The Cincinnati Enquirer said it had obtained a copy of a coroner's report on Otto Warmbier, based on an external examination, which revealed several small scars but nothing which indicated torture.
The paper quoted the Hamilton County coroner as saying Mr Warmbier's teeth were "natural and in good repair" and that he appeared to have died from brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen.

US President Donald Trump, who is known to watch Fox and Friends, tweeted that it had been "a great interview", and that "Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea".
His comment is likely to stoke the escalating tensions between North Korea and the US, which have exchanged allegations and threats at an unprecedented rate in recent weeks.
The leaders of both countries have directly threatened the other with nuclear annihilation. The international community is appealing for all incendiary rhetoric to be toned down.
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So then GAF. What's going on?
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
Any Questions said:
Am bumping this as couldn't find separate thread for this update.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41409878

Parents give statement on the condition they found their son. Thing is this is disputed by the coroner who says otherwise. Our man in the WH is tweeting the parents story...







So then GAF. What's going on?
Click to expand...

So the parents say he was tortured but the local newspaper says he wasn't? I don't doubt that NK would pull this kind of thing but I also don't see why the newspaper would lie for the benefit of NK, especially since this seems like the kind of story Trump would need to keep that fire burning.

The only conclusions I can come to that makes any kind of sense is that the parents are overexaggerating the injuries or the Cincinnati Enquirer thinks they have a lot more pull than they actually do. The former seems more plausible.
 
B

Boem

Member
Any Questions said:
Am bumping this as couldn't find separate thread for this update.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41409878

Parents give statement on the condition they found their son. Thing is this is disputed by the coroner who says otherwise. Our man in the WH is tweeting the parents story...

So then GAF. What's going on?
Click to expand...

It's a weird, sad story. If the parents aren't telling the truth, I can't blame them personally - they lost a child, they're traumatized. Maybe they want revenge, placing the blame firmly on NK after they denied doing anything wrong. Human emotions that, whatever, I can't judge. Obviously NK is the bad guy here, there's no doubt about that.

If the coroner's report is false, that's weirder. Can't think of a reason for that, unless it was incomplete for some reason - possibly awaiting the autopsy that never happened, only focused on immediate care. Or intentionally limited because of the government involvement.

But whatever is the case, I don't think it matters - he needlessly suffered and died because of a backwards corrupt regime. That much is certain.
 
S

SliceSabre

Banned
Any Questions said:
Am bumping this as couldn't find separate thread for this update.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41409878
So then GAF. What's going on?
Click to expand...
Parents are grief stricken and angry that short of going to war with NK there was no other way to get their son back and by the time they did he was in brain dead(?) and died shortly after he came home. I can see why they would lie/play up his injuries to get people to pay attention to what happened to him.

A coroner has no reasonable reason to lie about his condition whereas his parents honestly have many reasons to. NK clearly did something to him but what exactly they did we'll probably never know.


End all be all this is another lesson that people need to stop thinking its cool/ok to go to NK.
 
A

Any Questions

Member
Widdle Puppy said:
I'm not entire convinced he was routinely tortured. Need more medical opinions on this. Was he labotomized?
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Read like it at the beginning. Thing is why the conflict in his physical condition? It's not like the can be a mistake. Parents and president saying tortured beyond belief. Pliers to teeth and destroyed limbs. Then you get a newspaper reporting that coroner says looked good and died due to lack of oxygen to the brain?
 
A

Any Questions

Member
SliceSabre said:
Parents are grief stricken and angry that short of going to war with NK there was no other way to get their son back and by the time they did he was in brain dead(?) and died shortly after he came home. I can see why they would lie/play up his injuries to get people to pay attention to what happened to him.

A coroner has no reasonable reason to lie about his condition whereas his parents honestly have many reasons to. NK clearly did something to him but what exactly they did we'll probably never know.


End all be all this is another lesson that people need to stop thinking its cool/ok to go to NK.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't the president know exactly the condition of Otto? He must of. A released political prisoner and his condition especially given the situation, it's impossible POTUS didn't know about everything. So why tweet what he did?
 
W

Widdle Puppy

Banned
Any Questions said:
Read like it at the beginning. Thing is why the conflict in his physical condition? It's not like the can be a mistake. Parents and president saying tortured beyond belief. Pliers to teeth and destroyed limbs. Then you get a newspaper reporting that coroner says looked good and died due to lack of oxygen to the brain?
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Because they are exaggerating his condition. Doctors say he was a sick guy in a coma. Doubt he was tortured into it. He was kept in unsanitary conditions. I am more inclined to believe he fell ill and wasn't treated properly.
 
N

nynt9

Member
The family's description was from when Otto was alive. After he died, there was no autopsy. The coroner report was based on a visual examination. Also, something that looks grave to the emotionally invested family might not look as bad to a medical professional.

What I'm trying to say is these accounts aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
 
S

SliceSabre

Banned
Any Questions said:
Wouldn't the president know exactly the condition of Otto? He must of. A released political prisoner and his condition especially given the situation, it's impossible POTUS didn't know about everything. So why tweet what he did?
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Trump is known to be a massive liar and exaggerator so his account is unreliable at best. It feeds into his "Reasons for me to blow up NK." narrative he feeds to his supporters.
 
C

Chiaroscuro

Member
Thing is I don’t think NK would release him with too much visible signs of torture. So the story of his parente makes no sense, to return a person in this state to a country would be a call of war, what NK does not want. I believe it was torture yes, but probably water based or lack of breath, and it causes the brain damage. Why the parents are doing this may be because they are in deep grief and anger.
 
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skullmuffins

Banned
To be clear, he wasn't in a coma, but a persistent vegetative state / unresponsive wakefulness. So he could have moved, moaned, screamed, whatever, but all his higher brain function was gone and he'd be unresponsive to stimuli. I wonder if the "deformed limbs" the parents saw was due to spasticity or muscle contracture.
 
R

Rootbeer

Banned
If this is the truth and the family wanted the truth out, they should have allowed for a post-mortem examination. It isn't helping their case here. Because if his condition really was that awful I'd want to make sure everyone in the USA knew what had happened to him.
 
N

nynt9

Member
skullmuffins said:
To be clear, he wasn't in a coma, but a persistent vegetative state / unresponsive wakefulness. So he could have moved, moaned, screamed, whatever, but all his higher brain function was gone and he'd be unresponsive to stimuli. I wonder if the "deformed limbs" the parents saw was due to spasticity or muscle contracture.
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That's what I thought was the case as well.
 
ResidentDante

ResidentDante

Member
skullmuffins said:
To be clear, he wasn't in a coma, but a persistent vegetative state / unresponsive wakefulness. So he could have moved, moaned, screamed, whatever, but all his higher brain function was gone and he'd be unresponsive to stimuli. I wonder if the "deformed limbs" the parents saw was due to spasticity or muscle contracture.
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It would also explain why he seemed deaf and blind too as he wouldn't response with eye contact or reacted to speech.

Shaved head is probably just standard prisoner cut they do to everyone to better hygiene in prisons. The teeth though, that is a mystery.
 
C

Chaos2Frozen

Member
Any Questions said:
Wouldn't the president know exactly the condition of Otto? He must of. A released political prisoner and his condition especially given the situation, it's impossible POTUS didn't know about everything. So why tweet what he did?
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Because Trump has never let the truth stand in the way of a huge lie.
 
D

Dhx

Member
skullmuffins said:
To be clear, he wasn't in a coma, but a persistent vegetative state / unresponsive wakefulness. So he could have moved, moaned, screamed, whatever, but all his higher brain function was gone and he'd be unresponsive to stimuli. I wonder if the "deformed limbs" the parents saw was due to spasticity or muscle contracture.
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This would be my best guess as well. It explains the parents perspective completely. Horrible tragedy.
 
G

grumble

Member
Mousnis said:
Speaking about victim blaming

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/la-sha/on-the-revocation-of-whit_b_9531122.html

I just saw this article on my FB wall...
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While I understand her point that this guy is used to a society where the laws don't fully apply to him, and that this may have explained why he did something so stupid (I'm a white male american, the world belongs to me), this is overshadowed by the ridiculously harsh sentence doled out and how it's emblematic of a repressive society whose rules are nonsensical.
 
T

Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!

Member
It's worth noting that his parents have been trying to make this political for some reason. As soon as they got their son back they used it as an excuse to bash Obama/praise Trump which struck me as extremely odd at the time.
 
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