UN envoy urges DPRK to clarify why freed US student is comatose

Tomas Ojea Quintana, a United Nation human rights investigator, has urged Pyongyang to explain why the US student who was recently released from prison in the DPRK after over a year in detention was in coma when he returned home.

Otto Warmbier suffered from a severe brain injury and is in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness,” US doctors said on Thursday.

The DPRK said it released the 22-year-old student "on humanitarian grounds" after 17 months in prison. Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years hard labor last year for trying to steal a banner with a political slogan from the hotel. DPRK officials said the man had contracted botulism and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

US President Donald Trump described what happened to the student as a terrible thing.

(CGTN)