Mother's battle with Kim over son's death

Fred Warmbier, right, and Cindy Warmbier, left, parents of Otto Warmbier, wait for a meeting at the United Nations headquarters. Photo / AP

Her voice cracking with emotion, the mother of American student Otto Warmbier who was sent home from North Korea in a coma and died soon after said yesterday her family will keep speaking out about the country's human rights violations to "rub their noses" in what they did and embarrass Kim Jong Un's Government.

Cindy Warmbier told a United Nations symposium on the human rights situation in North Korea: "I can't let Otto die in vain ... We're not special, but we're Americans and we know what freedom's like, and we have to stand up for this. We have to."

Her comments came at a sensitive time, as Kim and US President Donald Trump are planning a historic meeting, and a day after the US leader hinted at the imminent release of American prisoners being held in North Korea.

A week ago, Cindy Warmbier and her husband Fred filed a wrongful death lawsuit against North Korea, saying its Government tortured and killed their son. The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Washington seeks compensation for the death of their 22-year-old son in June last year.

Otto Warmbier, who was a student at the University of Virginia, was arrested by North Korean authorities in January 2016 for stealing a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labour.

His plight compounded tense US-North Korean relations. His parents made clear yesterday that while they were silenced by fear of what North Korea might do to Otto after his arrest, they were not going to be quiet any longer.

"We woke up and we realised that North Korea wants us to lock ourselves in a room and do nothing, and we think that's a bad idea," Fred Warmbier said.

He said he and his wife were now focusing on the events that occurred "while they had Otto hostage and they were using him as a pawn". "We are trying to build a pathway that leads directly to Kim and his regime to force them to be answerable for their actions," he said.

Cindy Warmbier said Otto was brain dead at four months of captivity, and anyone who had a heart would have said, "Well, we screwed up, let's get him some medical care." But instead, she said, the North Koreans left him in a horrible place with no care to vegetate, and then acted "like we're doing the world a favour" and released him saying he had botulism - which US doctors never confirmed.

"So we can't be quiet, can we?" she said. "People say, 'Why are you doing this'? How can I not?"

- AP