The family of Otto Warmbier, the American student who died in 2017 after being imprisoned in North Korea, spoke out Friday about President Donald Trump's refusal to blame Kim Jong Un for the death of their son, saying the North Korean leader was responsible.
The statement was the first reaction from Warmbier's parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, to the president's comments during a summit meeting with Kim in Vietnam this week that he would take him "at his word" that he did not know about Warmbier's treatment while in prison.
"We have been respectful during this summit process," the Warmbiers said. "Now we must speak out."
"Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto," they said. "Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that."
Trump's remarks had set off anger and sympathy for the young man's family among U.S. political leaders on Thursday, as Trump abruptly wrapped up his meeting with Kim.
Trump said he and Kim had discussed Warmbier and that Kim felt "badly" about what happened to the American. Warmbier died shortly after he was released to the United States, with doctors saying he had suffered a catastrophic brain injury.
"He tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word," Trump said.
"I don't believe that he would have allowed that to happen, it just wasn't to his advantage to allow that to happen," he added. "Those prisons are rough, they're rough places, and bad things happened. But I really don't believe that he, I don't believe that he knew about it."
Later Friday, Trump responded to the Warmbiers' statement on Twitter, saying his comments were misinterpreted.
"Of course I hold North Korea responsible for Otto's mistreatment and death. Most important, Otto Warmbier will not have died in vain. Otto and his family have become a tremendous symbol of strong passion and strength, which will last for many years into the future. I love Otto and think of him often!" he said.
Trump's comments Thursday prompted anger from Democrats and Republicans.
In Ohio, Warmbier's home state, Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, appeared to break with Trump's position, telling reporters in a statement, "We must remember Otto, and we should never let North Korea off the hook for what they did to him."
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in an email: "North Korea murdered Otto Warmbier and the President of the United States has a responsibility to make sure they face the consequences. Anything short of that is unacceptable."
He said Trump was "sending a message to dictators around the world that he believes autocrats when they lie or when they cover up, or when they justify policies that result in the deaths of human beings."
Nikki Haley, the president's former ambassador to the United Nations and a former Republican governor of South Carolina, said on Twitter, "Americans know the cruelty that was placed on Otto Warmbier by the North Korean regime."
Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, was sentenced in 2016 to 15 years of prison and hard labor after being accused of stealing a propaganda poster during a trip to North Korea. He spent more than a year in detention there before he was allowed to return to the United States in grave condition. He died in June 2017.
Trump had previously pointed to Warmbier's injuries as an example of the brutality of the North Korean government. During his first State of the Union address, with Warmbier's parents in the gallery, Trump denounced Kim as a leader who had brutalized his own people and who must be made to give up his nuclear program.
Some of the president's critics questioned Thursday how Kim, who rules with an iron grip, could not have known what was happening to a high-profile American detainee imprisoned in his country for more than a year.
In an interview with CNN, Bill Richardson, a former Democratic governor of New Mexico who served as ambassador to the U.N. under President Bill Clinton and is an expert on North Korean affairs, said it was "inconceivable" that Kim "wouldn't know" the details of Warmbier's detention. He called it the "biggest bargaining chip" that North Korea had with the United States.
"To let this thing hang out this way is not right, and the president should know better," Richardson said. He said that a "full accounting" was needed but that North Korea was "not going to do it, they are hiding."
Warmbier's parents filed a federal lawsuit last year in the United States against the autocratic government, and they were awarded over $501 million in damages. The lawsuit cast a bright light on North Korea's human rights abuses, saying that the couple's son had been tortured so badly that he returned home deaf, blind and unable to communicate.
A Section on 03/02/2019