Flanked by soldiers and police, Wattana Pumares tells a policeman Tuesday how he allegedly carried out the bomb attack at Phramongkutklao Hospital last month.
BANGKOK — A 61-year-old man who reportedly confessed to carrying out a bomb attack at an army-owned hospital said Tuesday he’s sorry for his action and apologized to his victims.
As he was taken by security officers to “re-enact” his alleged crime, Wattana Pumares said he acted alone and intended the May 22 blast at Phramongkutklao Hospital to be a symbolic protest against the military regime. He also confessed to having carried out five other attacks in the past decade.
“I didn’t intend to hurt anyone. I’d like to apologize to the injured victims for causing their injuries,” Watana, a former engineer at the state electricity agency, said at a news conference. “I’m really sorry.”
More than 20 people were wounded when the bomb went off at a reception room at the hospital, which, though owned by the army, also treats civilians.
Watana, who worked for the state electric authority until his retirement last year, said he was motivated by his hatred for the military and their frequent intervention in politics, such as the two coup d’etats launched against the civilian governments in 2006 and 2014.
“I’m just an ordinary citizen who doesn’t agree with governments that came from coups, because they made the country face economic disasters, and rights and liberties of the people are violated,” Watana said.
He added that he doesn’t hate all members of the armed forces, only some “who exploit the public as their base to gain power.” The suspect also said he’s not connected to any political group.
Wattana was arrested by soldiers Thursday in his residence in northern Bangkok and identified as the perpetrator behind the hospital blast on May 22, the third anniversary of the coup that brought the current junta to power.
He was held in military detention before he was transferred to police custody for formal prosecution today. The suspect said he was never mistreated in detention.
Police accused him of not only carrying out the May 22 bombing, but also a bomb attack in 2006 in front of a shopping mall in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve. Police said he staged at least four more bombings in 2007 as well as two pipe bomb blasts this past April and May.
At least publicly, Watana admitted responsibility. He said the materials for each attack cost him only 50 baht.
Speaking to reporters after his weekly cabinet meeting, junta chairman Prayuth Chan-ocha described Wattana as a “lone wolf.” Nevertheless, the retired general said police are still expanding their investigation to see if he was backed by any larger group.
“The perpetrator acted individually and independently, or as they call it, a lone wolf,” Gen. Prayuth said. “There are people like this in foreign countries, too. But lone wolves in Thailand usually have someone big behind them [therefore] officers have not stopped here. They’re continuing to investigate.”
At today’s police reenactment, Watana Pumares sits on the same bench where he allegedly planted the bomb one month ago.
People enjoy the Chalerm Prakiat Park on Sunday in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Community members threatened legal action Tuesday to save one of Bangkok’s most picturesque parks which is located along the Chao Phraya River.
Managed since 2000 by City Hall, the Chalerm Prakiat Park sits on land owned by the Expressway Authority, which after 17 years wants the land back to build an elevated expressway linking Rama III Road to Dao Khanong on the Thonburi side of Bangkok. Park defenders say there is unused land there large enough for the project.
“All we ask that they don’t touch the park,” said Manus Upathambhakul, a 75-year-old park user and protest leader.
He said some 2,000 people who use the park daily will take the matter to the Administrative Court if needed. Manus and a few fellow park users have collected more than 2,000 signatures so far. He said they learned about the plan to scrap the park when two letters from the expressway authority appeared a notice board in front of the park earlier this month.
The park, which spans 29 rai (4.6 hectares), is also known colloquially as the Under Rama IX Bridge Park or Rama III Road Park for its location near the suspension bridge and arterial road. It’s a popular place for neighborhood people to jog, rest, play badminton or find a sepak takraw pickup match.
Manus Upathambhakul, 75, shows notices posted by the Expressway Authority, which owns the park land.
Manus and others staged a brief protest Tuesday morning in front of the expressway authority’s Chatuchak district headquarters. An authority spokesman who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to be quoted in the media said protesters may be jumping the gun, as reclaiming the land still awaits approval from the interim cabinet.
He also said the project may not need all the land, and the unused portion could be returned to the city to operate as a park.
Some protesters at the park Sunday said they don’t trust the authority not to use the high-value location near the river and iconic bridge for a profitable real estate development. They said the park contains mature trees, a result of nearly two decades of planting that would be difficult to replace if they were felled.
“It’s a shame, those trees have been planted for 20 years now,” said Walee Sangkakul, a frequent park visitor.
Large trees have taken nearly two decades to grow in the park.
Yuttapan Meechai, secretary to Bangkok Gov. Aswin Kwanmuang, was not optimistic, however.
He said the city has been negotiating with the authority for some time and would seek to keep the park open as long as possible.
He said it would be difficult to convince it to donate part or all of the land for permanent park use, as Benjasiri Park was by the Meteorological Department.
“The chances are difficult. We will just try to prolong it as long as possible,” Yuttapan said, adding that the fate of park may change if the public makes it an issue.
Park users call attention to the threat to the park Sunday.
Jose Mourinho seen here in 2015 during a match against Dynamo Kyiv in Ukraine. Photo: Aleksandr Osipov / Flickr
MADRID — A Spanish state prosecutor has accused former Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho of tax fraud worth 3.3 million euros (USD $3.7 million) in unpaid taxes.
In a statement released Tuesday, the state prosecutor said Mourinho committed two counts of tax fraud in 2011 and 2012.
It will now be up to a judge to decide whether to take the matter to court.
Mourinho currently coaches Manchester United.
The accusation against Mourinho comes a week after the Madrid-based prosecutor’s office accused Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo of defrauding Spain’s tax office of 14.7 million euros (USD $16.5 million). Ronaldo has denied any wrongdoing.
Prayuth Chan-ocha, who served as army chief at the time, casts his ballots in the Feb. 2, 2014, election in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Next time Thailand prepares to elect new leaders, it may do so through a system never used in its 85 years of democracy: primary elections.
Central party officials voiced skepticism Monday about a system intended to give the public more say in politics after a majority of the junta’s rubber stamp parliament approved introducing such a voting system into law when they last met.
According to the proposal, dues-paying party members in each constituency would vote for their own candidates to stand in elections, and the central party committees would have to respect those choices.
The idea was proposed by Gen. Somjet Boonthanom, a former senator known as a hardline conservative and junta supporter. Somjet was appointed in March to head a subcommittee writing the laws that will regulate political parties.
The interim parliament endorsed the idea 180-0 on Friday after a two-hour debate.
If approved, the primary voting amendment would be among a series of changes to the existing election system under oversight of the military regime that took power three years ago with the stated aim of “reforming the country.”
By this week, however, some politicians and even one senior junta official had voiced skepticism about the idea. Former Democrat MP Nipit Intrasombat said primary elections would only expose the nominating process to local nepotism and interest groups.
“Suppose someone doesn’t want to run but he sends his wife or his children instead,” said Nipit, who has been winning elections in Phatthalung province since 1992. “Who will the local party branch choose? … let me tell you, if we have a primary, nepotism will fully enter our system. It will parade right into our system.”
The idea’s most vocal supporter, a former Democrat Party MP later appointed to the junta’s reform council, has been touting the system as a means to decentralize party politics and empower voters.
“If we keep using old solutions to old problems, the problems will never go away,” Alongkorn Ponlaboot said, adding that the political party system has in over 70 years been unable to shed the taint of money, nepotism and interference by the elite.
Nipit warned that primaries would weaken political parties even further. The new charter drafted under the regime’s oversight has already been criticized for strengthening the military’s hand at the expense of elected leaders and making possible an unelected appointee to become prime minister.
“They never managed political parties, so they don’t know how complicated the issue is,” Nipit said.
Under the amended bill, all registered party members could vote to select their party’s candidate to represent their constituencies.
One former MP from Nipit’s rival party sat more squarely on the fence. Weng Tojirakarn, who represented the Pheu Thai Party in parliament prior to the 2014 coup, said he believes primaries would bring some benefits, such as empowering local voters to choose their own representatives.
“The people in a constituency know better than anyone else which person fits to represent them as an MP,” Weng, a Redshirt activist, said by phone.
But he also had reservations. For instance, he said, it could pit factions and candidates in a political party against each other.
“Opinions will be different from those of the central committees, which can easily lead to conflict,” he said, adding that it’s also unclear how primary voting would work with selecting party-list candidates.
‘It Won’t Be Smooth’
Another to voice skepticism wasn’t a career politician but one of the new constitution’s authors, whose commission will be asked to approve or reject the supporting laws being approved by the interim parliament.
Meechai Ruchuphan, a junta appointee to the Constitution Drafting Committee, told reporters yesterday he’s afraid the system will conflict with other laws related to the election. For example, if the house is dissolved, he said the constitutional mandate for a new poll within 45 days was not enough time for primaries to be held for voters to select candidates.
Because of his reservation, the interim parliament and Meechai’s commission may have to convene in a joint committee to resolve the contentious issue, as required by the charter. If that happens, Meechai said he will raise his disagreements.
“A primary system will cause problems that affect the next election. It won’t be smooth,” Meechai said.
Alongkorn, the former Democrat who supports the idea, maintains that though Thailand has not embraced primaries in eight decades of parliamentary democracy, a new system is needed.
He said primaries have proven successful in the United States, and an experimental primary he once staged in Ayutthaya province four years ago was a success, with younger people participating and increased political engagement.
“We want democracy in Thailand to be truly participatory,” Alongkorn said. “In the past, all we have had is just one-minute democracy.”
Although Nipit, the former Democrat MP, said adding primary voting would see the election delayed even further, Alongkorn said that wouldn’t be the case.
“The roadmap will still be the same,” he said.
According to the timeframe established by the new constitution, elections should take place by late 2018. Deputy junta Prawit Wongsuwan said Tuesday that the timeframe still stands.
An undated photo of the Mae La refugee camp in Trat province. Photo: IOM / Courtesy
BANGKOK — The suicide rates in a refugee camp along the Thai-Myanmar border have risen to three times the world average during the past two years, according to a report issued Monday by a UN-affiliated migration agency.
According to the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, only one person killed themselves in the Mae La camp in Trat province from June 2014 to May 2015, but 14 people took their lives the next year during the same period and 14 again in the year after that.
The official overseeing the camp on Tuesday rejected the report’s conclusions and demanded it be corrected.
IOM’s data indicates a suicide rate of 36.6 per 100,000 people for the past two years, a rate three times higher than the WHO’s global average of 10.7 per 100,000. As for attempted suicides in the same three-year period, the report said the figure rose less dramatically, from 30 to 31 and 35, respectively.
IOM acknowledged that better monitoring may have be a factor in their reported surge in suicide rates.
“The rates have increased dramatically from 2014 onwards, which may be due to the fact that surveillance and registration systems started to be more comprehensively applied,” the IOM report said.
Preeda Fungtrakoonchai, who heads the Mae La Camp where the study was conducted, said the figures used in the IOM report were simply wrong and denied there has been a spike in suicides there.
The figures he supplied for the total number of suicides from January 2015 to present – 28 people – were the same as IOM’s count for roughly the same period, but were based on different spans of time. Eight people killed themselves in calendar year 2015, 18 in 2016 and two so far this year, he said.
Nonetheless, Preeda, who works under the Department of Local Administration, complained IOM’s data was inaccurate and said its representatives only met with him briefly last month.
“They only interviewed me and didn’t tell me they’re going to write a report. I chatted with them for half an hour, but then things turned out like this,” Preeda said. He said he’s told IOM its figures were inaccurate since the report’s release yesterday.
Reached for a response Tuesday to Preeda’s objections, IOM representatives had no ready answers. They said they would make inquiries with their superiors and respond quickly, but no such response was forthcoming as of press time.
Suicide Factors
An undated photo of the Mae La refugee camp in Trat province. Photo: IOM / Courtesy
Since the early 1980s, refugees from Myanmar have arrived through Thailand’s western border, chiefly in Tak province. The report noted that although Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it adopted an open-door policy and allowed refugees from Myanmar to stay in the country. Most were fleeing ethnic conflict in Myanmar’s southeast and Burmese military persecution. Many are ethnic Karen. IOM said it received special permission from the government to conduct interviews and studies in the camp focusing on the growing suicide rate.
The report added that suicide rates for 2015 and 2016 inside the camp are “significantly higher than the rates in Thailand in general,” which the Public Health Ministry put at 6.47 per 100,000 people, or roughly one-sixth of the rates in Mae La.
The IOM assessment, presented on the eve of today’s World Refugee Day, said there were no family counseling services inside all nine camps, including Mae La, which altogether house more than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar.
Asked why there’s no counseling in the camps, Dana Graber Ladek, IOM’s chief of mission in Bangkok, cited a decrease in international funding and the fact the Thai government has always seen the camp “as a temporary situation and not a permanent situation,” so it are is reluctant to set up such services and would rather close the camps as soon as possible.
Sally Thompson, chairwoman of the Committee for Coordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand said that since the May 2014 military coup, more control has been exerted and conditions inside the camps have become “more restricted.”
IOM cited distress, hopelessness, substance abuse, domestic conflict and domestic violence as contributing factors in the suicides and attempted suicides.
“All participants report a high level of distress, due to issues related with lack of freedom of movement, uncertainty about the future, decrease in food rations, worries about the fact that the camp will be closed and they will be forced into repatriation while resettlement is slowing down, economic hardship and lack of educational opportunities for the young ones, with increase in alcohol and anti-social behavior among their children,” the 22-page report said.
Preeda disputed those findings also, saying that family conflicts – not despair – were responsible for most suicides in the camp. He said the camp is Thailand’s largest with than 20,000 refugees from Myanmar, 65 percent being Karen and the rest Burman and Burman muslims.
The IOM report, “Assessment of Suicide Risks and Factors in a Refugee Camp in Thailand,” cited no specific cases due to the organization’s policy.
Spokesman Reuben Lim Wende said the camps are off-limits to the media. He also would not identify contacts within the Interior Ministry with knowledge of the camps and policy decisions affecting them, citing the “sensitivity” of the issue.
The report did say that those interviewed for the study said community support and the love for families and the hope for their future, which includes resettlement, good education and the possibility to give their parents better future makes their life worth living.
IOM said it conducted postmortem reviews of 29 of those who killed themselves by interviewing their family members, as well as looking at 20 of the 96 attempted suicides.
A selection of orange wines available at About Eatery.
BANGKOK — Giulio Saverino snaps his fingers and a waitress comes over, decanting a persimmon-colored alcohol into his class. He’s drinking orange wine.
The Italian wine expert says orange wine is the hot new thing – despite being thousands of years old – especially for those avoiding impurities or animal products. While conventional wine may use egg whites, fish oils or fish bladders during filtration, Saverino said “nothing is added or removed during the process of making orange wine.”
“You get the freshness of the white wine and the tannins of the red,” Saverino said. “It’s very popular among women here. Seventy percent of my orange wine customers are women.”
The process of making orange wine itself is over 6,000 years old. It involves one of the simplest forms of winemaking, in which organic white grape juice is left in contact with the grape skin for a much longer period, creating a cloudy amber color rather than the mirror-like clarity of conventional reds and whites, according toNew York Times food writer Eric Asimov.
Recently, orange wine has made a comeback as part of the natural wine movement in the greater organic food trend.
To an uncritical tongue, the orange wine was easier to drink with less of the tannin bitterness of many reds and a fuller, fruitier flavor than whites – and without the morning-after headache. The cloudy unfiltered ones also lend a fruity aroma that paired well with cold cuts and vegan bruschetta. Or, as Saverino put it: “even Asian food.”
Our favorite of the five sampled at a press event last week was the 2015 Jamon Jamon from Chile.
Saverino first brought orange wines from his homeland in northeast Italy in 2016 and says he will expand the selection at About Eatery this year.
You can try them yourself, but as anyone with a nose for wine knows, they are expensive in Thailand. Expect to pay 125 baht to 395 baht for a half glass, 250 baht to 790 baht for a full glass 1,250 baht to 3,950 baht for a bottle.
Saverino broke from sales mode to warn that drinkers should not associate cost with quality.
“Price doesn’t equal quality for orange wine,” Saverino said. “The wine differs bottle to bottle because it depends on the grapes used for each bottle.”
Vegan and meat tapas to munch on with the wine cost 150 baht to 380 baht.
“Of course, you don’t have to be vegan to try the endive with beetroot dip,” Saverino said. “I decided to bring in vegan wine because, nowadays, people want to eat healthy.”
Saverino claims About Eatery is the first natural wine bar in Thailand, as well as the first to serve orange wine. It’s open 11:30am to 2:30pm and 5pm to 1am daily. The restaurant is accessible by foot from MRT Sukhumvit or BTS Asok.
Orange wine of varying clarities at About Eatery.A selection of orange wines available at About Eatery.A selection of vegan tapas by About Eatery.Cold cuts and cheese tapas paired with orange wine.Customers at About Eatery sipping wine.Giulio Saverino, sommelier of About Eatery, holds up a bottle of 2015 Elementis, Intellego orange wine from South Africa.The atmosphere of About Eatery during their Orange Wine Week 12 to 17 June.
BANGKOK — Take a virtual reality tour of the new Thailand Creative and Design Center, or TCDC, which reopened May 5 near the Chao Phraya River in the imposing Grand Postal Building, a modern, brutalist structure dating back to 1940.
The five-story venue fills about 10,000sqm and includes a library, coworking space, maker space, materials room and an outdoor rooftop garden. The renovation cost about 340 million baht.
The video is available embedded above from both Facebook and YouTube On the desktop, use your pointing device to look around. On a smartphone, simply move your phone to change the viewing direction. Users of Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard or virtual reality headsets should check how to view them on their devices.
BANGKOK — The director of the Samsen Wittayalai School said Monday that a video in which he appeared to accept a parent’s bribe was a plot to defame the school.
The video, given to a reporter Saturday in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, recorded an April encounter in which the parent claimed to give the school director, Virot Sumruan, a 400,000 baht “donation” to help secure his child’s enrollment.
The school director on Monday wrote a letter to the Office of the Basic Education Commission saying the act was planned by an alumnus to defame him and the school.
Virot claimed a group of alumni had been asking the school to accept children into the seventh and tenth grades, or Mathayom 1 and 4, every year. He said they were recently displeased after the school did not accept all the children they sought to enroll this year.
“This group of alumni were displeased and went to meet the director, talking in a threatening way,” he wrote.
Refusing to identify himself fear of retaliation, the parent, a resident from the south, said he gave the reporter information because he was not provided a receipt for the donation and was not confident his money would be spent to benefit the school.
It’s an open secret and routine practice for schools to solicit “donations” from parents – many of whom are willing to pay “tea money” to enroll their children in prestigious institutions – but the arrangement is not officially recognized.
The recording of the April 19 encounter covers everything from calling to schedule an appointment with the director to meeting him inside his office.
“Give it to the deputy director,” Virot can be heard saying when the parent asks what to do with what he calls “support money.”
The video does not show the parent give the money to the deputy director.
After the video was divulged – quickly becoming the subject of public controversy – the commission which oversees the school launched an investigation into the director.
Virot pointed out that the video filming was well planned and raised the question of why it was only recently released after having been filmed in April.
Virot is due to hold press conference Tuesday afternoon.
LOS ANGELES — Carrie Fisher’s autopsy report shows the actress had cocaine in her system when she fell ill on a plane last year, but investigators could not determine what impact the cocaine and other drugs found in her system had on her death.
The report released Monday states Fisher may have taken cocaine three days before the Dec. 23 flight on which she became ill. She died four days later.
It also found traces of heroin, other opiates and MDMA, which is also known as ecstasy, but that they could not determine when Fisher had taken those drugs. The findings were based on toxicology screenings done on samples taken when the “Star Wars” actress arrived at a Los Angeles hospital.
Coroner’s officials ruled Fisher died from sleep apnea and a combination of other factors. A news release issued Friday mentioned drugs were found in Fisher’s system, but it did not provide details.
Monday’s full report contains a detailed explanation of the results, such as why investigators believe Fisher took cocaine at least three days before her flight.
“At this time the significance of cocaine cannot be established in this case,” the report states.
It also states that while heroin is detectable in the system for a briefer period of time, investigators could not determine when Fisher, 60, took it or the ecstasy. Toxicology tests also found other opiates in Fisher’s system, including morphine, although the report states the morphine could have been a byproduct of heroin.
“Ms. Fisher suffered what appeared to be a cardiac arrest on the airplane accompanied by vomiting and with a history of sleep apnea. Based on the available toxicological information, we cannot establish the significance of the multiple substances that were detected in Ms. Fisher’s blood and tissue, with regard to the cause of death,” the report states.
Among the factors that contributed to Fisher’s death was buildup of fatty tissue in the walls of her arteries, the coroner’s office said last week.
A phone message left for Fisher’s brother, Todd, was not immediately returned.
Todd Fisher said Friday he was not surprised that drugs may have contributed to his sister’s death.
“I would tell you, from my perspective that there’s certainly no news that Carrie did drugs,” Todd Fisher said. He noted that his sister wrote extensively about her drug use, and that many of the drugs she took were prescribed by doctors to try to treat her mental health conditions.
Fisher long battled drug addiction and mental illness. She said she smoked pot at 13, used LSD by 21 and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 24. She was treated with electroshock therapy and medication.
“I am not shocked that part of her health was affected by drugs,” Todd Fisher said.
He said his sister’s heart condition was probably worsened by her smoking habit, as well as the medications she took. “If you want to know what killed her, it’s all of it,” he said.
CINCINNATI — Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was released by North Korea in a coma last week after almost a year and a half in captivity, died Monday, his family said.
The 22-year-old “has completed his journey home,” relatives said in a statement. They did not cite a specific cause of death.
“Unfortunately, the awful, torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” his parents said.
Doctors had described his condition as a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” and said he suffered a “severe neurological injury” of unknown cause.
His father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that he believed Otto had been fighting for months to stay alive to return to his family. The family said he looked uncomfortable and anguished after arriving June 13 but his countenance later changed.
“He was peace. He was home, and we believe he could sense that,” they said.
“I have made the worst mistake of my life!” he exclaimed, choking up as he begged to be allowed to reunite with his parents and two younger siblings.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor.
The University of Virginia student was held for more than 17 months. His family said it was told he had been a coma since soon after his March 2016 sentencing.
Doctors said he suffered extensive loss of brain tissue and “profound weakness and contraction” of his muscles, arms and legs. His eyes opened and blinked but without any sign that he understood verbal commands or his surroundings.
Unresponsive wakefulness is a new medical term for persistent vegetative state. Patients in this condition who have survived a coma can open their eyes, but they do not respond to commands. People can live in a state of unresponsive wakefulness for many years with the chances of recovery depending on the extent of the brain injury.
North Korea said Warmbier went into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill. Doctors in Cincinnati said they found no active sign of botulism or evidence of beatings.
His parents told The Associated Press the day of his release that they wanted “the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime.”
Fred Warmbier praised his son’s “performance” and President Donald Trump’s administration. He was critical of the approach to his son’s situation taken by former President Barack Obama’s administration.
In a White House statement, Trump said, “A lot of bad things happened, but at least we got him home to be with his parents.” He called North Korea a “brutal regime.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he offered his prayers as Warmbier’s parents “enter a time of grief no parent should ever know,” and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Warmbier’s death “touches the American heart like no other.”
The younger Warmbier grew up in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming. He was salutatorian of his 2013 class at a highly rated high school and was on the soccer team. He had had planned to study in China in his third year of college and heard about Chinese travel companies offering trips to North Korea.
Young Pioneer Tours described itself as providing “budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from.” Its travel options also included Iran, Iraq and former Soviet countries.
Warmbier was leaving North Korea on Jan. 2, 2016, when he was detained at the airport.
The U.S. Department of State warns against travel to North Korea. While nearly all Americans who have been there have left without incident, visitors can be seized and face lengthy incarceration for what might seem like minor infractions.
Jeffrey Fowle, also from Ohio, was detained in 2014 when he intentionally left a Bible in a nightclub. Fowle was freed after six months. He said he was kept isolated most of the time but not physically abused. He and others freed from North Korea have said they were coached and coerced into giving confessions.
Three Americans remain held in North Korea. The U.S. government accuses North Korea of using such detainees as political pawns. North Korea accuses Washington and South Korea of sending spies to overthrow its government.
At the time of Warmbier’s release, a White House official said Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy on North Korea, had met with North Korean foreign ministry representatives in Norway the previous month. Such direct consultations between the two governments are rare because they do not have formal diplomatic relations.
Yun learned about Warmbier’s condition in a meeting a week before the release from the North Korean ambassador at the U.N. in New York. Yun then was dispatched to North Korea and visited Warmbier June 12 with two doctors and demanded his release on humanitarian grounds.
Warmbier’s hometown rallied around his family, wrapping school-color ribbons around trees and utility poles lining Wyoming’s main road. People chanted “Otto Strong!” and “We love you!” after his father’s news conference last week at the high school.
Warmbier was “generous, outgoing, sweet, smart as a whip, just an overall good guy,” Danica White, his sophomore English teacher, recalled last week.
On Monday evening, she said: “Otto will be dearly missed.”
