North Korea accused the United States today of conducting a “defamation campaign” over the death of a US student detained for more than a year and sent home in a coma.
US President Donald Trump has criticized the imprisonment and death of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier as “a total misfortune.” “The defamation campaign against North Korea staged in the United States forces us to make firm determination that humanitarianism and benevolence for the enemy are taboo and we must sharpen the law even more,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Exteriors in state media.
The north had denied early Friday to torture or mistreat Warmbier, in the first official reaction to his death. “Our relevant agencies treat all criminals in accordance with domestic laws and international standards and Warmbier was no exception,” said a spokesman for the National Reconciliation Council.
“Those who have absolutely no idea about how well we treat Warmbier in humanitarian terms dare to pronounce ‘ill-treatment’ and ‘torture,'” according to the official KCNA news agency.
Warmbier was buried Thursday in Ohio, less than a week after he was sent home in a mysterious coma. He had been imprisoned for more than a year in North Korea after allegedly stealing a political slogan while traveling to the capital, Pyongyang, as a tourist.
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