( Washington, DC ) - 22-Year-Old Otto Warmbier died just days after he was released from a North Korean prison. The young man spent 17 months in that prison, and now his family says they want to hold North Korea accountable.
On Thursday, the Warmbier family filed a lawsuit in federal court against North Korea. The Warmbiers say the regime "brutally tortured and murdered" the Wyoming High School graduate.
Warmbier was visiting the country when he was taken into custody on January 2, 2016, accused of stealing a propaganda poster. After giving what was likely a coerced confession, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was released in June of 2017, and was brought back to the US in a vegetative state. He was pronounced dead less than a week later.