The US agreed to pay North Korea $2 million for its ‘care’ of dead American Otto Warmbier: report

The US agreed to pay North Korea $2 million for its ‘care’ of dead American Otto Warmbier: report
PYONGYANG, March 16, 2016 -- American student Otto Frederick Warmbier, center, is escorted out of the courtroom after his trial in Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, on March 16, 2015. American student Otto Frederick Warmbier, held by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for anti-DPRK crimes, the Supreme Court of the DPRK announced Wednesday. (Xinhua/Lu Rui via Getty Images)
News & Politics

The United States government paid the North Korean government $2 million in exchange for the “care” that it gave to Otto Warmbier, the late American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea and returned to the United States in grave physical condition.


The Washington Post reports that North Korean officials served American officials a bill for $2 million that they demanded the United States pay in exchange for flying Warmbier back to the United States.

According to the Post, “the main U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions passed down from President Trump.” It is not known yet if the bill has been paid, but the bill itself was sent to the Treasury Department.

Upon his return to the United States, it was revealed that Warmbier had been comatose for more than a year while being held in detention by North Korea. He died within days of his return to the United States.

Earlier this year, Trump angered Warmbier’s family when he said that he believed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un didn’t know anything about how Warmbier had been treated, while insisting that Kim “felt very badly” that he was returned to the United States in a coma.

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