US student released from DPRK has severe brain injury

The American student released this week by the DPRK after 17 months in detention has suffered severe brain damage, doctors said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon.

The 22-year-old Otto Warmbier arrived in the United States on Tuesday. Warmbier "shows no sign of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surrounding," said Dr. Daniel Kanter, medical director of the neuroscience intensive care unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

"Warmbier experienced extensive tissue loss in all regions of the brain," Kanter added. But there is no evidence to identify the cause of the student's neurological injuries because he showed no signs of physical trauma.

Doctors field questions about the condition and treatment of Otto Warmbier during a news conference at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S., June 15, 2017.

The student's father, Fred Warmbier, said at an earlier news conference that his son had been "brutalized and terrorized" by the DPRK.

Warmbier was a student at Virginia University and was detained in January last year. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor after attempting to steal a political poster from the Pyongyang hotel where he was staying.

The DPRK on Thursday said Warmbier was released "on humanitarian grounds."

(CGTN)