Heartbreaking final photos of Otto Warmbier laughing and joking in North Korea before he was jailed and 'brutalised' into a deadly coma for 'stealing' a propaganda poster
The final photographs of Otto Warmbier in North Korea show him happily mingling with locals, drinking beer and laughing with his tour group of new friends before he was jailed for stealing a propaganda poster, imprisoned for 17 months and 'brutalised' into a coma from which he died this week.
The images were obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com on Tuesday, a day after the 22-year-old died at a hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, after being suddenly returned to his family on 'humanitarian release' by the North Korean regime on June 13, the Daily Mail reports.
They show him gleefully throwing snowballs with portraits of dictator Kim Jong Un in the background and posing with local women and members of the tour group he was a part of.
In others, he is seen sampling local delicacies in restaurants, posing for a selfies and giggling on their bus on New Year's Eve.
He is joyful in all of them and oblivious to the shocking fate which awaited him at
Pyongyang Airport where he was arrested as he tried to make his way home on January 2,
2016 for stealing a poster at a hotel.
Grainy surveillance footage appeared to show him ripping it down. North Korean authorities say he stole it and likened it to a hostile act on the country and jailed Otto mercilessly for it.
His friends on the trip say he never removed the poster from the hotel and say he was in bed on the night of the alleged theft with an early flight to catch the next day and no reason to risk his freedom.
“He was in bed the night in question, and the next morning we had an early departure from the airport. He was in a good mood that morning.
“The poster story didn't arise until a few weeks later. The footage North Korea released was grainy, and only showed someone taking it down, and not even leaving with it,' said one member of the group who wished to remain anonymous.
“Irregardless the punishment never fit the crime, and now it is even more so. The cruel, harsh and barbaric North Korean regime murdered an innocent 22-year old American student, and more importantly our dear friend,” they added.
They remembered Otto by his “laugh, his infectious smile, and his ability to love everyone.”
He told The Washington Post on Monday that two guards tapped him on the shoulder and marched him away without explanation.
“No words were spoken. Two guards just come over and simply tapped Otto on the shoulder and led him away. I just said kind of quite nervously, "Well, that’s the last we’ll see of you." There’s a great irony in those words,” he said.
Otto's death has sent shockwaves through Washington D.C. and has added a sobering, human dimension to the US's bubbling tension with North Korea.
President Trump, Vice President Pence, John McCain and others at all levels of government have admonished Kim Jong Un - and the Obama administration - for the student's disturbing fate.
As his family announced his death on Monday, they didn't reserve any diplomacy either.
“The awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” Cindy and Fred Warmbier said in a statement.
“When Otto returned to Cincinnati late on June 13th, he was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands.
“He looked very uncomfortable - almost anguished. Although we would never hear his voice again, within a day the countenance on his face changed - he was at peace. He was home and we believe he could sense that.
Shocked doctors from the Cincinnati Medical Center, where Otto was rushed immediately after he returned to the US last week, say he suffered extensive brain loss.
He was almost vegetative when he returned to Ohio. They say he was unable to speak, showed no signs he could understand what others were saying to him and gave a bleak prognosis.
None offered speculation on what may have caused his condition but they undermined North Korea's dubious story that it was the result of botulism, a form of severe food poisoning.
They claim he contracted it while in their custody and that a sleeping pill they gave him sent him into a coma.
North Korean doctors claimed the student had been this way since the day after he was sentenced to 15 years hard labour in 2016.
The American doctors who reviewed MRI scans that were sent back on a private medical
plane with him say they saw no evidence of botulism.
They suggested that his condition was more likely the result of a heart attack but would not speculate on what may have caused such a trauma in a young, otherwise healthy man.
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