An American student at the University of Virginia, Otto Warmbier, detained by the North Korean authorities and imprisoned for 17 months, died in a hospital in Cincinnati on June 19, a few days after he returned to the United States.

The death of a 22-year-old young man on Monday, June 19, was announced by his parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier and reported by The Washington Post.

The Warmbier family said that he fell into a coma around April 2016, shortly after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea.

Warmbier had complicated brain damage

Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center examined 22-year-old Otto Warmbier, who was arrested in North Korea during a tourist trip, and said he had complicated brain damage that contributed to the medical condition of "unreceptive wakefulness."

Doctors from the Medical Center of the University of Cincinnati, where Warmbier died, said last week that the patient showed no signs of understanding language or awareness of his environment. The circumstances of his detention in North Korea, as well as the methods of medical treatment that he received there, remained a mystery.

According to Warmbier's parents, he was physically abused by the North Koreans.

According to the US acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia, Susan Thornton, the U.S. was concerned for three other US citizens still held in North Korea.

Otto Warmbier was arrested by police at the airport of Pyongyang in January 2016 for stealing a political slogan banner from his hotel wall.

North Korean authorities released the prisoner under pressure from the international community after the Western world became aware of the catastrophic deterioration of his health.

Trump's speech on the brutality of North Korea and mourned for Warmbier's death

Donald Trump delivered a speech about the death of the student from the United States who died after returning from North Korean imprisonment.

President Trump and his wife mourned and expressed their deepest condolences to the family of the deceased Otto Warmbier.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Otto’s family," Trump said in the American edition of WCPO Cincinnati.

Trump added that the death of Warmbier gave impetus to his administration's determination to fight political regimes that do not respect the law and principles of human decency. The head of America added that the country once again condemned the brutality of the North Korean regime as the U.S. mourns its latest victim.
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