Otto Warmbier family will get half billion $ from North Korea

A court in the United States ordered North Korea to pay more than $ 500 million in compensation due to the death of an American student, Otto Warbler, who died after imprisonment and alleged torture in the DPRK.

Judge Beryl Howell from the Washington District Court found North Korea guilty of torture, hostage-taking and extrajudicial execution of a 22-year-old American.

"The totalitarian regime in Pyongyang used Uormbir as a pawn in his worldwide fraud and confrontation with the United States," the judge said. The parents of Wormbere thanked Beryl Howell for a “thoughtful decision,” according to which the North Korean leadership was found “legally and morally” responsible for the death of their son.

The decision of the Washington court has only symbolic meaning since there are no mechanisms in the US for collecting compensation from North Korea. The DPRK also does not have property in the United States that could be arrested as an interim measure.

The court in the United States ordered the DPRK to pay $ 500 million due to the death of a student

The condemnation is symbolic and there is no international treaty between the two countries that force North Korea to pay this compensation or involve the two nations.

22-year-old Otto Warbier died in June 2017 shortly after being brought from North Korea to the United States in a state of coma with signs of torture on his body. Warbler arrived in North Korea in December 2015 as part of a tour group from China. In January 2016, he was detained at the Pyongyang airport while trying to take out a political propaganda poster. In court, the student was convicted of a "crime against the state."

Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years in prison for forced labor for stealing an advertising poster at the hotel where he was staying for tourist purposes in 2016, After his arrest for almost a year, the student was deported to his country in 2017 because of his deteriorated health status. Warmbier died in the hospital six days after stepping on American soil.

Doctors said Warmbier had no neurological reaction after the first examination. The family did not authorize an autopsy on the student's body, Shortly before the verdict was announced, a press conference was held at which Warbler, without concealing tears, asked for forgiveness from the North Korean people, calling the attempt to steal the poster "the most terrible mistake in life."

The North Korean administration rejected having tortured Warmbier and said that the student's death was due to food poisoning in prison.