A medical examiner has said that the body of Otto Warmbier, the American student who died days after being released from North Korea in a coma, displayed no obvious signs of torture, despite claims by his parents and President Donald Trump that he was physically abused following his arrest last year.
Lakshmi Sammarco, a coroner in Warmbier’s home state of Ohio, said the 22-year-old, who had been sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour while visiting North Korea, had died from a lack of oxygen and blood to the brain but could not explain what caused his neurological condition.
“We don’t know what happened to him, and this is the bottom line,” Sammarco said, adding that the cause of the death may never be known.
The revelations came a day after Warmbier’s parents and Trump accused the regime of torturing Warmbier, who had been convicted of trying to steal a propaganda poster from a Pyongyang hotel in March 2016 and sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier told US TV networks on Tuesday that their son had showed signs of torture, including teeth that appeared to have been “rearranged” and hands and feet that were disfigured.
“They kidnapped Otto, they tortured him, they intentionally injured him. They are not victims, they are terrorists,” Fred Warmbier said on Fox and Friends.
He said his son’s mouth “looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth”.
After the interview was aired, the US president for the first time accused the North Korean regime of torturing Warmbier. Trump called the parents’ interview with Fox “great” and said: “Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.”
But Sammarco, who examined Warmbier’s body after his death in June, said there was no clear evidence of physical torture – including no recently broken bones or damaged teeth.
“We’re never going to know, unless the people who were there come forward and say: ‘This is what happened to Otto.’”
Warmbier’s body displayed a few small scars, all but one of which could be traced to medical instruments, she said, adding that the Warmbiers’ TV interviews had prompted her to publicly reveal her findings.
“They’re grieving parents. I can’t really make comments on their perceptions,” she added.
Her report showed the University of Virginia student had died following complications resulting from a lack of oxygen to the brain. His condition had been caused by “an unknown insult more than a year prior to death”, the report said.
Warmbier’s parents had refused to allow an autopsy to be carried out.
Sammarco said she had conducted a “virtual autopsy” using extensive medical scanning and imaging, adding that a regular autopsy would have been of little use so long after Warmbier suffered brain damage.
She said that his body was in surprisingly good condition for someone who had reportedly been bedridden for more than a year. Her office’s report said his body appeared “well-nourished”.
Warmbier died in Cincinnati in June, less than a week after he was flown back to the US in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”.
Three Americans accused of various crimes against the state remain behind bars in North Korea, which is engaged in a tense standoff with the Trump administration over its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
