It would be tempting to think that North Korea’s atrocities in the case of Ohio college student Otto Warmbier at least ended when the murderous regime returned the comatose young man to American officials.
But in recent weeks it has come to light that North Korea found the nerve to demand Americans pay a $2 million “hospital bill” in exchange for releasing Otto in June 2017.
The 22-year-old Cincinnati-area native was a University of Virginia student on a travel-abroad program when he went with other students to North Korea in December 2015. North Korean officials detained him after Otto allegedly stole a poster from a hotel.
After a dramatic show trial, the North Koreans sentenced Otto to 15 years hard labor, after which the young man vanished into the closed country.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, worked for 15 months to find out what happened to Otto and secure his release. Tragically, when the North Koreans finally offered to release Otto as a “humanitarian gesture,” he had suffered serious brain damage.
Mr. Portman accompanied Otto on the last leg of his trip back to Ohio, where he died six days later.
And all of that would have been tragic enough, except now the public has learned the North Koreans demanded what amounts to a ransom for their mortally injured hostage.
The only money owed in this horrific case is the $500 million that North Korea owes the Warmbier family — a judgment awarded in court last year. There is, of course, very little chance the family will ever see this money, or any other real justice.
That is what makes the revelation of the $2 million demand even more galling.
Mr. Portman — who recently was photographed at the North Korean-South Korean border in a T-shirt that memorialized Otto — emphasized that not only will the United States never pay a $2 million “hospital bill,” it will never forget what North Korea did.
A debt is owed here. Otto Warmbier and his family are owed justice. And no one in the United States, or U.S. government, should forget that.
First Published: May 4, 2019, 11:00 a.m.
