WYOMING – The day after hundreds of mourners paid their respects to Otto Warmbier, North Korea has called itself the “biggest victim” in the death of the college student from southwest Ohio who was detained for more than a year and died days after being released in a coma.
About 2,000 people packed into a school Thursday for Warmbier’s funeral in Wyoming, near Cincinnati. They heard stories about his life, rap music he listened to and his habit of shopping for sweaters at thrift stores. A bagpiper played as the casket was carried to a hearse, and mourners lined the street.
Warmbier’s cause of death hasn’t been determined. Relatives say they were told the 22-year-old University of Virginia student had been in a coma since shortly after being sentenced to prison in North Korea last year.
He’d been accused of trying to steal a propaganda banner.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Friday denied that North Korea cruelly treated or tortured Otto Warmbier and accused the United States and South Korea of a smear campaign that insulted what it called its “humanitarian” treatment of him.
Doctors in the United States who examined Warmbier after his release said he had suffered a severe neurological injury from an unknown cause. Relatives say they were told the 22-year-old University of Virginia student had been in a coma since shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea in March 2016.
His family and others have blamed North Korea for his condition.