American Otto Warmbier, held prisoner in North Korea since January 2016 when he was arrested at the Pyongyang Airport and accused of crimes against the state for stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel, was returned to the US in a coma on June 13. He died on June 20. No autopsy was performed.
North Korean officials said that Warmbier had been in a coma since soon after his trial, the coma resulting from a case of botulism and his being given a sleeping pill. However, they also claimed to have returned Warmbier to the US in his “normal state of health,” saying that his subsequent death is a mystery. US doctors found no evidence of botulism and determined that Warmbier’s coma was induced by a lack of oxygen in the brain, possibly from either an extended cardiac arrest or asphyxiation.
Three US citizens remain imprisoned in North Korea.