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North Korea says it chose to release American citizen Otto Warmbier "on humanitarian grounds" after he had been held prisoner for 17 months.
- North Korea said Mr Warmbier's release followed a court decision
- It did not provide any further details
- It has been reported that he fell ill from botulism last year, and is now in a coma
Mr Warmbier, 22, was medically evacuated to the United States yesterday in what his family said was a state of coma.
North Korea's KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence dispatch that Mr Warmbier's release followed a court decision earlier this week, but it did not provide other details.
"Under a decision by the DPRK Central Court of June 13, American citizen Otto Warmbier who was serving a sentence of labour was returned on June 13 on humanitarian grounds," KCNA said.
DPRK is short for North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
His release came after Joseph Yun, the US State Department's special envoy on North Korea, travelled to Pyongyang and demanded Mr Warmbier's release on "humanitarian grounds," capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a US official told Reuters.
Mr Warmbier's parents, Fred and Cindy, confirmed their son was on a medevac flight.
He was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in March last year for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.
Mr Warmbier's family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that he fell ill from botulism some time after his March 2016 trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.
The New York Times quoted a senior US official as saying Washington recently received intelligence reports that Mr Warmbier had been repeatedly beaten in custody.
Mr Warmbier's release came as former US basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea, returning to the nuclear-armed country where he met leader Kim Jong Un on previous visits.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, law-crime-and-justice, korea-democratic-people-s-republic-of, united-states