The tragic death of US citizen Otto Warmbier in a Cincinnati hospital could forever be a mystery. Otto joined a tour group to North Korea and was arrested as the group was set to return to Beijing. The circumstances of his arrest are shrouded in mystery, but it appears that he tried to steal an article from the hotel bearing a political slogan. The trial was a sham but the sentence of 15 to hard labour was real. The US could do little to help Otto on account of the hostile relationship it shares with North Korea. Somewhere during his incarceration he suffered brain damage and fell into a coma. The circumstances that led to brain damage are equally mysterious because US neurosurgeons were unable to put their fingers on it. And in the absence of any physical trauma or fractures it is difficult to establish what happened to him when in prison. Pyongyang has its explanation, but it is mostly unbelievable. How can one believe any explanation offered by a nation-state where everything is controlled by its ruler? In the meantime anger is growing in the US at what happened, but there is little the US administration can do to either make North Korea pay or unearth the truth behind Otto’s mysterious death.
