What happened to Otto Warmbier in North Korea DW Documentary_1080
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00:00An airfield near Atlanta, emergency doctor Mike Flueckiger is embarking on a special mission.
00:08Destination, North Korea.
00:10They said this is a medical evacuation, we need you to go in and bring him out.
00:15A mission to retrieve US citizen Otto Warmbier, last seen in public 14 months earlier.
00:22A prisoner of the regime of North Korea.
00:27War mongering between rivals Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump is at its peak.
00:33They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.
00:41A silent mission on a difficult route.
00:45We elected not to use South Korea, China or Russia to help us plan the mission.
00:54Days later, Otto Warmbier is back home, but he's fatally ill.
01:04Severe brain damage, says the coroner. Cause, unknown.
01:10Was it torture?
01:14Warmbier's parents become pawns in a game played by President Trump.
01:20Who later announces that the North Korean leader knew nothing about Warmbier.
01:28All I can do is shake my head, right? Too many lies, right?
01:35When the State Department sends emergency doctor Mike Flueckiger to North Korea,
01:40his plane of choice is still in Africa.
01:43The carrier, Phoenix Air, often evacuates Ebola patients.
01:48But for this mission, Flueckiger insists on the best plane and the best team.
01:54He doesn't even tell his family where he's headed.
01:58I didn't tell them exactly where I'd been until the mission was over.
02:03Because it was becoming more and more apparent that this was a special mission.
02:08I told them I was going to Korea to pick up a patient.
02:11I did not say North Korea.
02:13I told them I was going to South Korea to pick up a patient.
02:17I told them I was going to South Korea to pick up a patient.
02:21I told them I was going to Korea to pick up a patient. I did not say North Korea.
02:25At Phoenix Air's headquarters, a second team led by Chief Operator Dent Thompson
02:30has to solve a logistical problem.
02:33The plane will not be allowed to refuel in Pyongyang.
02:37Currently, there are certain sanctions that are in place
02:40between the U.S. government and the North Korean government.
02:44And for us to pay for anything, we would have to get special permits,
02:49which we simply did not have time to do.
02:53On the morning of June 10, 2017, a Saturday, the plane takes off on its mission.
03:00Flueckiger is joined by two male nurses and two U.S. State Department representatives.
03:07With refueling stops in Montana and Alaska,
03:10their flight takes them halfway around the globe to northern Japan
03:15and hopefully on to Pyongyang.
03:25The outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio.
03:35Otto Warmbier grew up here, in the suburb of Wyoming.
03:41At first, his parents don't answer our inquiries.
03:45They aren't seeking the spotlight.
03:48The town has modest and affluent neighborhoods.
03:52Otto Warmbier's father runs a medium-sized business.
03:56Otto, the oldest of three children, is the pride of both his family and his high school.
04:03At graduation, he holds the commencement address.
04:08His future is mapped out.
04:10College in Virginia, a scholarship, a planned semester abroad in Hong Kong.
04:15But first, a New Year's adventure.
04:18North Korea.
04:22He books through a Chinese travel agency.
04:25Its slogan,
04:27He joins an international group.
04:29They have a great time.
04:41He's left an indelible mark on me.
04:43He was such a lovely lad.
04:45I've spoken to a lot of people who were on the phone with him.
04:48They've all said,
04:50Every year, the agency touts their dazzling travel highlight in Pyongyang.
04:55The alcohol flows freely.
04:57The tour guides make sure everyone's in a good mood.
05:02Nights are long at Pyongyang's only hotel.
05:06It's a place to relax.
05:08It's a place to eat.
05:10It's a place to drink.
05:12It's a place to go to sleep.
05:16Nights are long at Pyongyang's only hotel for foreigners.
05:23Otto's group has fun, too.
05:25It isn't clear whether they also took on the challenge of the forbidden fifth floor,
05:29but many tourists have done so in the past.
05:42It is the staff's floor.
05:44With hallways full of propaganda slogans.
05:59The hotel's surveillance center is also located here.
06:04Tourists are usually just admonished.
06:07They act innocent and run off.
06:10This New Year's Eve, however,
06:12the cameras capture someone taking a poster from the wall.
06:16It is 1.57 a.m.
06:18And it is, according to the trial,
06:21Otto Warmbier.
06:25Instead of leaving North Korea with the others on January 2nd,
06:28he's taken into custody.
06:30And he simply had a tap on the shoulder.
06:33Two guards took him away.
06:35And I sort of laughingly said to him,
06:37Well, that's the last we'll ever see of you.
06:39And because we got on so well, Otto turned around and just chuckled at me.
06:43But, of course, there was a huge irony in my words,
06:46that we obviously didn't know what was going to happen,
06:48but that was the last time anyone actually saw him.
06:52Two months later,
06:53North Korea's propaganda televises a staged confession.
06:58I entirely beg you,
07:00people and government of the DPR Korea,
07:04for your forgiveness.
07:07Please, I have made the worst mistake of my life.
07:12But please,
07:14I never should have allowed myself to be allured
07:18by the United States administration
07:21to commit a crime in this country.
07:24A show trial,
07:26with obviously coerced statements,
07:29perhaps in exchange for a pardon.
07:34Sixteen days later,
07:35Warmbier discovers that his hopes were in vain.
07:39He is publicly sentenced to 15 years of hard labor
07:42for subversive activities.
07:45His condition from this point on remains uncertain.
07:56Shortly before takeoff,
07:57Dr. Mike Flueckiger is given the few details known about Warmbier's condition.
08:03I had one small written note,
08:06one paragraph about his condition
08:08saying he was in a coma at Pyongyang Friendship Hospital.
08:12That's really all I knew
08:14except that he had been hospitalized for 15 months.
08:17Was Flueckiger worried about the threat of war?
08:20Not really, he says.
08:23I think I had felt that the relationship
08:26between North Korea and the U.S. had been bad for a while,
08:30and no, I thought if this door had opened
08:34to bring Otto Warmbier back,
08:37then there had been negotiations to ease things a little bit.
08:44In fact, North Korea's sudden diplomatic effort
08:47surprises the U.S. negotiators.
08:50Mickey Bergman is one of them.
08:55Since Warmbier's arrest,
08:57he had been trying to gain access to him
08:59with the help of U.N. contacts.
09:04Bergman works together with Bill Richardson,
09:07former governor of New Mexico
09:09and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
09:12Hardly any other team is as experienced
09:14in dealing with Pyongyang as they are.
09:17In general, the only available direct channel that we have
09:21are the people that represent North Korea here at the United Nations.
09:25In this case, the individuals are people
09:27that know the governor from before, they know me from before.
09:30So that's a direct channel.
09:32But at the end of the day, they're not decision-makers.
09:35And if you want to get to a deal,
09:37when you want to get to an understanding,
09:39you have to be there in person.
09:41So the first priority is, okay,
09:43how do we get ourselves invited to North Korea
09:45to make sure that we can talk to the people
09:48who can make decisions about this?
09:50It was different in that you knew that
09:53Otto Warmbier by the North Koreans
09:55was considered something special
09:57because he was from the Midwest,
09:59he was an attractive young man,
10:01he was an All-America boy.
10:04You knew this one was special
10:06because it got a lot of TV coverage
10:09from North Korea, the trial,
10:11where the young man was in trauma.
10:13He was very upset.
10:15He was carried around.
10:17And you knew that this was a very sensitive time
10:21in United States-North Korea relations.
10:24So the North Koreans you knew early on
10:27would use him as a bargaining chip
10:29to get something back from the United States.
10:32They always use political prisoners
10:35as bargaining chips.
10:36They want something in return.
10:38Would that be typical that U.S. inmates
10:41suffered physical torture or physical violence?
10:45The North Koreans are very tough on interrogations.
10:49And their prisons are not ideal.
10:53Sometimes they make these political prisoners
10:55work in the fields so labor is involved.
10:59Do they specifically torture?
11:02I don't have any evidence that they do.
11:05Do they treat the prisoners well? No.
11:11I think where the North Koreans fall short
11:13is just in international standards
11:16of allowing consular visits.
11:18Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
11:21It depends on the prize of the prisoner that they hold.
11:27They want to dramatize it as much as they can.
11:33Insiders call these contacts
11:35between North Korea's U.N. representatives
11:37and people like Richards,
11:39the New York Channel.
11:41For a long time, it's been the only connection
11:44between the two countries.
11:47Here at the Palm restaurant,
11:49Ricky is alive with steak and lobster
11:51over meetings that take place every few weeks.
11:54Mickey Birdman believes he's close to a breakthrough.
11:57He's told to come to Pyongyang.
12:00We got the invitation.
12:03And when I went there,
12:05even on the plane, on the way,
12:08I did have that fantasy in my mind
12:11that I'm coming back with Otto.
12:14Swedish diplomats also pressure Pyongyang.
12:17There is a meeting of diplomats in Oslo,
12:19but no progress is made.
12:24I was told that, look, don't be disparaged.
12:28There's a saying in Korea
12:30that it takes a thousand hacks to bring down a tree.
12:33And my response was,
12:35I hope I don't need to come back again,
12:37you know, however many times in order to get it happened,
12:41but I get the message.
12:44The Kim regime seems to buy time,
12:47keen to use warm beer as an asset.
12:50Kim won't negotiate
12:52until he feels protected by his new nuclear weapons.
12:58At the UN General Assembly,
13:00North Korea's delegation ignores both the threats
13:03and the insults made by the newly elected US president.
13:07Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.
13:13And for his regime.
13:16North Korea is still studying Donald Trump's behavior,
13:19waiting for new insights.
13:24The Obama administration and North Korean relationship
13:27was not good.
13:29The policy was strategic patience,
13:31more sanctions, more sanctions.
13:33The North Koreans, they weren't happy with that, obviously.
13:37And they saw in a new administration,
13:39well, maybe, you know, we show that we're ready to deal.
13:44And Otto Warmbier is the closest thing to a concession.
13:52But what was it that convinced Pyongyang
13:54to allow ailing Otto Warmbier to be evacuated?
13:58Does the regime believe America will be grateful?
14:02Or is Warmbier already so weak
14:05that they just don't want him to die as their prisoner?
14:10Flickiger asks himself the same questions.
14:14Until his crew suffers the first setback.
14:17When they reach Sapporo that evening,
14:19their flight seems doomed.
14:23The local flight control center
14:25doesn't have the information it needs.
14:28The plane is grounded.
14:31They told me that the Japanese air traffic control,
14:36because there was no relationship with North Korea,
14:39did not want to let us fly directly to North Korea.
14:43They would have to send us to another route,
14:46to a country that they did have a relationship with,
14:49and then at that point we would fly in.
14:52I called back up to the U.S. Department of State
14:55and got a very high-level person on the phone,
14:58and I said, here's the situation.
15:00Unless you can intercede and resolve this,
15:05this trip is over.
15:08After nighttime crisis calls with government officials,
15:11Japan's Prime Minister eventually gives the go-ahead.
15:16The next morning, Flickiger's plane receives clearance
15:19to fly from Sapporo to Pyongyang,
15:22a flight route that doesn't officially exist.
15:26When the plane was probably 100 miles
15:31east of the North Korean boundary,
15:35the Japanese air traffic controller said,
15:38we're now terminating service.
15:41North Korea is in front of you.
15:44Have a nice day.
15:46And then turned off the radio.
15:50The Pyongyang airport contacts the plane by radio.
15:54Hours later on the ground,
15:56Flickiger's team is escorted to the building
15:58where Warmbier has been hospitalized for months.
16:03We were dropped off at the front door of the hospital
16:06and accompanied down a hallway, up the stairs,
16:09and when we entered the room,
16:12there were two doctors and four nurses.
16:14One was the chief of staff of the hospital,
16:16and one was the doctor who had been in charge
16:19of Otto's care during the time that he had been in the hospital.
16:24And so they said, you can examine Otto.
16:30My first impression was, he's not in a coma.
16:34He was awake. He had his eyes open.
16:37He was not responsive, purposefully responsive,
16:40but he was reactive to noise and touch and so on,
16:44and the doctors and nurses confirmed that.
16:49Flickiger examines Warmbier, asks the doctors more questions.
16:54It was a standard physical exam.
16:57I listened to his heart and lungs, checked his eyes, pupils,
17:02did a neurologic exam as best I could.
17:06I had what I felt was enough time to examine.
17:09That's when I started asking questions.
17:11They said, let's go out.
17:14You finish your exam, then we'll go out and talk.
17:17You must have had also on your mind what happened
17:20to make him fall into a condition like that.
17:22Yes, right. Yeah, absolutely.
17:24What did you think?
17:26Well, the North Koreans had two possible explanations.
17:30One was botulism poisoning, which they could not test for.
17:36They said he had eaten a pork meal the day he went into prison
17:41and could have had botulism poisoning,
17:44which can cause you to stop breathing,
17:47but it would not happen that quickly in general.
17:50It didn't sound very plausible.
17:52The other was that they had given him two sedatives on the night
17:55he went in because he was very agitated, upset,
17:58and that either he had a bad reaction or they gave him too much.
18:03They said that themselves.
18:05Did you have a feeling in North Korea
18:08that the doctors were hiding something from you?
18:12I certainly was looking for signs of torture.
18:16Could this be torture?
18:19And what I concluded from my physical exam
18:23was that I could not see any signs of torture.
18:26I had the feeling they were forthcoming with their information
18:32and it didn't seem that they were hiding anything.
18:36And we examined all of his skin
18:39and found no evidence of any skin breakdown.
18:42After a hospitalization of that length, that's pretty remarkable.
18:45So that to me indicated that he got good care,
18:51he got attentive care, and yeah, it's an indicator.
18:56Did you have in mind the parents waiting, not knowing?
19:00Was that something that you carried with you?
19:02It happened the whole time, the whole time we were there.
19:06Since Warmbier's parents still won't talk to us,
19:09we talk to people they have been more open with.
19:12A two-hour drive from New York, we meet one of them.
19:16The Warmbiers had turned to him for help early on.
19:20A former diplomat with Korean experience,
19:23we discuss what strategic patience means for the families.
19:28Should they remain silent to keep from endangering negotiations, or not?
19:35During many, many hours of rather emotional conversations
19:42that we had on the phone, I began to hear this argument from them,
19:47and I pushed back against it.
19:49And I gave them evidence that there were efforts being made,
19:53not just efforts by me and other civilians, but people in the government.
19:58But I also made the point to them
20:01that something was different about the way that Otto's case was being handled,
20:07and it made the normal diplomatic intervention
20:12that you would expect to work with the North Koreans, it made that ineffective.
20:20The Warmbiers have even stopped talking to Otto's school.
20:24Month after month goes by with no sign of life from their son.
20:29Nobody knows that in faraway North Korea,
20:31he was seen from the outset as a prisoner of war, with no access to diplomats.
20:39Following Trump's inauguration, Warmbier's parents speak out
20:43and accuse the Obama administration of failure,
20:46although they met with his Secretary of State John Kerry several times.
20:52They confide in Trump's favorite network, Fox News.
20:56They easily pray for their host's ongoing partisan crusade against Obama's Democrats.
21:04John Kerry was Secretary of State at the time. Did you speak to him?
21:07We met with him.
21:08And what was the outcome of that?
21:12A nice guy, nice person.
21:15Did he help you in any way?
21:16Totally exasperated and overwhelmed with North Korea. Totally.
21:21Did he help you in any way?
21:22No, absolutely not.
21:24Did anyone in the State Department help you in any way?
21:26No, no, absolutely not.
21:29The first thing after I got the phone call was,
21:33did you read the State Department blog on North Korea before you let him go?
21:43Wait, someone from the State Department said that to you?
21:45In other words, blaming you for the kidnapping and imprisonment of your son.
21:50It was your fault. That was the message from the State Department.
21:52Right.
21:53They acted like we were ignorant, basically, for letting him go.
21:58We feel ignorant.
21:59Wait, so they judged you and blamed you for your son's kidnapping by the North Korean government.
22:05Yes.
22:06Like it was your fault. That's what you got when you reached out to the U.S. government for help.
22:09Right.
22:10You got blame and judgment.
22:11And they asked us to stay quiet because they said it's better for everyone involved.
22:19Better for the bureaucrats because nobody knows how little they're doing when nobody talks about it.
22:24Do you have a message for this new State Department, for Secretary Tillerson?
22:27What would you like him to do?
22:29Sure. I'd like to work with him to bring Otto home.
22:32He can make a difference here. He's a doer.
22:35It may be disrespectful to ask for that.
22:38President Trump, I ask you, bring my son home.
22:42You can make a difference here.
22:44I pray this is resolved. Thanks a lot for joining us.
22:47One thing I know for sure, I have not been a parent that lost a kid.
22:51And that's something that I was talking to Fred and Cindy Warmbier throughout, is that those things take time.
22:58It doesn't mean that you need to sit back and trust that the government is doing everything for you
23:03because the government has complex sets of interests, but it takes time.
23:08And on average in North Korea, it's between a year and a half and two years.
23:12And in all the scenarios that I've ever imagined working on this, and we worked on it for about 18 months,
23:18I always imagined that it does get resolved and Otto does come home.
23:23And I had never imagined in all this time the scenario of what actually ended up happening.
23:28What upset me was that it took them a year to admit that he was in a coma.
23:33They never told us that.
23:35The North Korean contacts we had said that they didn't know either that he was in a coma.
23:40That's possible.
23:41He was controlled, a young man, Otto, by the security services.
23:46And they don't communicate with each other.
23:48This is a country of enormous secrecy.
23:51Only the top, only the top echelon knows what's going on
23:56and they decide who gets the information within their own government.
24:02The North Korean doctors hand over their CT scans of Warmbier's brain to Dr. Flueckiger.
24:08He writes a report.
24:09But still, Warmbier is a prisoner.
24:13The door opens and here comes a judge in a judge's robe.
24:18He goes to that same spot I was in and he conducted a little 10-minute court hearing
24:25to commute Otto Warmbier's sentence.
24:29So he was still a prisoner.
24:31He had to have an official hearing to release him.
24:35And then at that point they brought in all of Otto's belongings
24:38and they wanted us to go through them piece by piece and check it off.
24:43We said, just give us his passport, his wallet, just give us everything.
24:49On June 13, 2017, Otto Warmbier finally leaves North Korea.
24:55The vibration and noise of the airplane was really difficult for him
24:59and it made him stiffen up and almost as if he were having a convulsion.
25:03So we gave small doses of standard sedating drugs.
25:08The two nurses and I said, talk to each other about how do we want the parents to see him.
25:15Do we want him to be fully awake or do we want him to be calm and sedated?
25:20And we decided he should be calm and sedated.
25:25Flueckiger's crew flies home via their planned route.
25:30Until the White House administration's claims of success create another mishap.
25:37At the President's direction, the Department of State has secured
25:40the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea.
25:44He is on his way en route home to be reunited with his family.
25:49We began to talk with the ground handling people at Cincinnati International
25:54and they said the media was showing up truck after truck
25:58and it was getting out of control.
26:01And we said, look, we highly recommend that we change the arrival airport
26:06from Cincinnati International Airport to Lumpkin Regional Airport.
26:14Warmbier's parents and his two younger siblings are waiting outside the hangar.
26:19The rescue team decides to give them time on board alone with Otto.
26:25We all understood what a terrible situation this was for them.
26:30We escorted them onto the plane.
26:33Fifteen minutes out from the airport, we had given him another dose of the sedative
26:38and he was very calm and quiet.
26:40The minute the parents got up there and started talking to him, he woke up.
26:44So it was my impression and the nurse's impression that, yeah,
26:48he at some level recognized his parents' voices.
26:53Did he?
26:54I think so, yeah.
26:55He just immediately woke up and was kind of in that agitated state.
27:01It was so hard to watch.
27:06Fred Warmbier later describes their reunion.
27:11I knelt down by his side and I hugged him and I told him I missed him
27:15and I was so glad that he made it home.
27:18Since the airport doesn't have the necessary equipment,
27:22Warmbier is carried from the plane while his mother and father look on.
27:28This will be the last public photograph of him for a long time.
27:35She and I firmly believe that he fought to stay alive
27:38through the worst that the North Koreans could put him through
27:41in order to return to the family and community he loves.
27:46But the hope that he recovers is short-lived.
27:51He shows no signs of understanding language,
27:55responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surroundings.
28:02A week later, the family gives up.
28:05They have all life support systems switched off.
28:08Otto Warmbier dies.
28:10Fred and Cindy Warmbier continue to stay out of the limelight.
28:16But when North Korea itself claims to be the victim in the case,
28:20they make another appearance on Fox News.
28:23They describe Otto's return home in stark terms.
28:27Otto had a shaved head.
28:29He had a feeding tube coming out of his nose.
28:32He was staring blankly into space, jerking violently.
28:37He was blind. He was deaf.
28:40As we looked at him and tried to comfort him,
28:42it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers
28:45and rearranged his bottom teeth.
28:48Within two days of Otto being home,
28:52his fever spiked to 104 degrees.
28:56He had a large scar on his right foot.
29:00North Korea is not a victim.
29:03They're terrorists.
29:05They purposely and intentionally
29:08They destroyed him.
29:09They purposely and intentionally injured Otto.
29:15With no evidence, Trump Twitters,
29:18Great interview.
29:19Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.
29:25Before, and also with no evidence,
29:28a government official had told the New York Times
29:31that Otto had been repeatedly beaten.
29:38However, neither the hospital nor the coroner we consulted
29:42found any evidence of torture.
29:46But what was the cause of death?
29:52We have evidence that his brain was deprived of oxygen
29:57for a length of time significant enough
30:00to cause severe anoxic encephalopathy.
30:04In other words, brain damage caused by lack of oxygen to the brain
30:09has to be at least four minutes.
30:12This is an example of what a normal brain looks like.
30:15And then this is an example of a brain with changes
30:20similar to what Otto had,
30:22where you can see that the ventricles are huge
30:26and the rest of the brain tissue is really shrunken,
30:30meaning that the entire brain was deprived of oxygen
30:34for a significant amount of time.
30:36If he was struck here, he might have changes here,
30:39but then he may also have something called contricu injury,
30:43which is across the brain to this side of the head.
30:47He might have changes as well.
30:49But what caused the brain injury?
30:52Waterboarding? Electric shocks? A suicide attempt?
30:56All possible, she says, including Pyongyang's own explanation.
31:01If they gave him something to sedate him
31:04that made him stop breathing for a period of time,
31:09a long enough period of time, absolutely.
31:13Her specialists also examined the scar on his foot.
31:18Their findings were inconclusive.
31:22I can't argue with anybody that says,
31:24hey, this could have been caused by electrodes.
31:26It could have been, but maybe it was something
31:29that was placed in the skin that got infected.
31:31That could have been, too.
31:33So there's nothing specific about that healed scar.
31:38What remains is the allegation
31:40that Warmbier's lower teeth were forcibly twisted.
31:43Yet the coroner says there would be signs of trauma.
31:48This is an example of the changes that he had in his lower teeth.
31:53The forensic odontologist looked at it as well
31:56and agreed that there was no trauma at all to those roots.
32:00And you can't pull teeth out and then rearrange them
32:05and put them in different places
32:07without there being trauma to the roots.
32:09If I had any evidence and concrete evidence
32:14that there was a criminal act here,
32:17I would be very loud about it
32:19and would definitely be stating that.
32:22Unfortunately, the evidence we have
32:25does not point to anything in particular
32:28as far as this is what happened to him.
32:33At first, the coroner withholds the results,
32:36out of respect for the Mourning family.
32:39But in her mailbox, she also found warnings.
32:42It felt vaguely threatening,
32:45and that I was being disloyal to the president
32:51and that I shouldn't disagree with the president,
32:54especially in such a public way.
33:00Efforts to get to the bottom of the Warmbier case
33:03have resulted in countless files and articles.
33:06Much of the information is contradictory.
33:09Establishing the truth would also pose a challenge
33:12to the federal court in Washington,
33:15where the Warmbiers file a lawsuit against North Korea.
33:19With the help of government-friendly experts and lawyers.
33:25Pyongyang does not contest the case,
33:28and the trial takes place with the plaintiffs only.
33:31And strangely enough,
33:33without Flückiger and the coroner appearing as witnesses.
33:39One expert witness urges the judge
33:41to hand down a spectacular verdict.
33:45I replied,
33:47I do believe that this case has the potential
33:50to go beyond the personal tragedy
33:53suffered by the Warmbier family
33:55and perhaps one day save lives,
33:57that is, deter North Korea
34:00with the right kind of punitive damages
34:02and the judgment that the judge will make.
34:06The expert continues making controversial claims.
34:10Citing the question of Otto Warmbier's teeth, for example.
34:14His teeth were in perfect, fine alignment, straight.
34:18When he was returned,
34:20it was clear that at least two of his lower teeth
34:23had been realigned,
34:25which is a polite way of saying
34:27plucked out and then shoved back in.
34:30He also claims that North Korea tortured Warmbier
34:33to deter the U.S. from military action.
34:36But Washington didn't even know of his condition.
35:07In the end, the court orders North Korea
35:10to pay half a billion dollars,
35:13based, among other things,
35:15on the president's public confirmation
35:17that North Korea tortured Otto.
35:24For a long time,
35:26the U.S. government has been trying to
35:28get North Korea to pay half a billion dollars.
35:33For a while, the Warmbiers publicly stand by the president,
35:37lending their support to his fight
35:39against the North Korean dictatorship.
35:42After a shameful trial,
35:45the dictatorship sentenced Otto
35:48to 15 years of hard labor.
35:51Otto's wonderful parents,
35:55Fred and Cindy Warmbier,
35:58Fred and Cindy Warmbier
36:01are here with us tonight.
36:03Please.
36:14You were powerful witnesses to a menace
36:17that threatens our world,
36:19and your strength truly inspires us all.
36:22Thank you very much. Thank you.
36:29Kim Jong-un and the U.S. President
36:36At some point,
36:37the North Korean leader clearly decides
36:39that his rockets provide the country
36:41with sufficient protection.
36:44Maybe he's spent enough time studying the U.S. president
36:47to see he only needs to compliment Trump
36:49to get his way.
36:52And although Kim refuses to demobilize,
36:54Trump starts to praise him like never before.
36:57He even exonerates Kim in the Warmbier case.
37:04I don't think that the top leadership knew about it.
37:09You know, you've got a lot of people, a big country,
37:11a lot of people.
37:12And in those prisons and those camps,
37:14you have a lot of people.
37:16And some really bad things happened to Otto.
37:18Some really, really bad things.
37:20But he tells me that he didn't know about it,
37:23and I will take him at his word.
37:25Yes, ma'am. Go ahead, please.
37:27Otto Warmbier has served his purpose.
37:30Kim Jong-un is now a friend of Donald Trump.
37:34He wrote me beautiful letters.
37:36And they're great letters.
37:38We fell in love.
37:40The Warmbiers are shocked and react in writing.
37:44Kim and his evil regime are responsible
37:46for the death of our son.
37:48No excuses or lavish praise can change that.
37:52I had a call and talked to Fred and Cindy just to check in.
37:56Every now and then, we talk a little bit,
37:58and that was an important moment
38:00because I knew that they...
38:02that that must have been emotional.
38:06It's hard for me to explain Donald Trump,
38:09President Trump's tactics in this.
38:13I am supportive of engagement with North Korea, obviously.
38:16That's what we do.
38:18I am not a fan of the high-wire personal diplomacy
38:24because it might work on a tactical level,
38:28but when it fails, we're on the brink of war.
38:31I would hope that he was not trying to use the family.
38:36I think he genuinely felt for the family and for Otto.
38:41But then his statements about Kim Jong-un, my buddy,
38:45are very disconcerting and disappointing.
38:50In New York, we soon come across more disturbing details.
38:55Allegedly, the official torture claim was controversial
38:58from the outset within the Trump administration,
39:01says ex-diplomat Evans Revere.
39:05He received a call after citing the accusation
39:07in a radio broadcast.
39:10I merely cited the New York Times story
39:13and the fact that a U.S. government official
39:16apparently had confirmed that there had been torture.
39:20This made the senior official who called me rather upset,
39:25and he made a point of calling me directly
39:27and saying that there had been no torture,
39:30that Otto came back and it was obvious
39:33that he had been well cared for in the hospital,
39:36that he didn't have any bedsores
39:38or the things that you would normally expect
39:40of a torture victim to have.
39:43I said, I'm not confirming it, I'm not denying it,
39:45I'm just repeating what he had said.
39:48And he said, well, I just wanted to let you know for the record
39:50that there was no torture.
39:53We ask in Washington if that's true.
39:56The White House doesn't answer.
39:58The State Department responds by saying,
40:00we won't have a comment on this.
40:04When we ask for permission to film Otto Warmbier's grave,
40:08his mother agrees to accompany us.
40:15Hours later, it's clear she isn't coming.
40:19She texts us to cancel the interview.
40:27A year later, we meet in Berlin.
40:30The Warmbiers now see themselves
40:32as international campaigners against North Korea.
40:35For Otto's sake.
40:37That's Otto and I, we did a tandem bicycle race.
40:41And that's Otto playing football and he loved that.
40:47They also show us previously unseen pictures.
40:51And that's how Otto looked when we got him home.
40:54That's Otto with his mom.
40:57They are plagued by more than their loss.
41:00They still need clarity.
41:03That doesn't just happen.
41:05He didn't have any scars on his body.
41:08That doesn't just happen.
41:10Think about this.
41:12A 21-year-old kid who's, like I described,
41:15works out all the time, eats healthy.
41:18How do you end up a vegetable otherwise?
41:21And Flueckiger?
41:25And Flueckiger?
41:27How does he feel about the mission
41:29that both succeeded and failed?
41:34Shortly after his return home to Cartersville, Georgia,
41:37news channels claim that the U.S. paid North Korea
41:40$2 million for hospital costs, which is later denied.
41:45And North Korea insists that Warmbier returned home healthy.
41:50The North Koreans said they had released Otto
41:53in good shape and he died in the U.S.
41:56What's your comment on that?
41:58Yes, I know. Look at that.
42:00They took him back to America and he died in six days.
42:03Well, when I read that, all I can do is shake my head, right?
42:08Too many lies, he says.
42:11And I was only the doctor.
42:23I was only the doctor.