WYOMING — The life of a 22-year-old college student who died this week after being detained for nearly a year and a half in North Korea will be celebrated in his southwest Ohio hometown, still stunned by his loss.
Wyoming officials say the service for Otto Warmbier (pictured, above, following his 2016 arrest) in the Wyoming High School auditorium will be open to the public Thursday, but not to news media.
The Hamilton County coroner is still trying to determine the cause of Warmbier’s death Monday. The University of Virginia student was accused in January 2015 of trying to steal a propaganda banner while visiting North Korea.
Steve Thomas, his former soccer coach, says he was a key player who had a deep commitment to reaching out to people. He has “an overwhelming sense of loss” about his passing.
U.S. Rob Portman denounced Warmbier’s detainment and sentence as unnecessary and appalling” in a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor.
“Otto’s case is a reminder that we must on the one hand increase pressure on North Korea to force them to change…But at the same time we’ve got to maintain an open line of communication to deal with the deadly, serious issues we face,” Portman said.
Warmbier’s detainment and death have renewed questions about whether the company that arranged his tour of North Korea was adequately prepared for its trips into the hard-line communist state.
Beer-soaked “booze cruises” down North Korea’s Taedong River and Saint Patrick’s Day pub crawls in Pyongyang featuring drinking games with cheery locals were included in the competitively priced catalog of exotic-sounding, hard-partying adventures in one of the world’s most isolated countries offered by the Young Pioneer Tours agency.
Past Young Pioneer customers describe a company with occasional lapses in organization, a gung-ho drinking culture and a cavalier attitude that has long raised red flags among industry peers.
The company has stopped offering trips to North Korea.