Otto Warmbier’s funeral sees his heartbroken family and hundreds of mourners remember ‘brilliant’ student who was ‘brutalised’ in North Korean prison camp
Popular Otto was detained by Kim Jong Un's regime last year and sentenced to hard labour
TEARFUL friends and family of US student Otto Warmbier gathered for his funeral today following his death just days after being returned from detention in North Korea in a coma.
The 22-year-old was to be laid to rest at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio after he died in hospital on Tuesday.
Popular University of Virginia student Otto was hospitalised with brain damage while in a North Korea labour camp.
At a show trial in March last year he was sentenced to 15-months hard labour for trying to take a propaganda poster during a stopover in the hermit state.
Otto's family described his "mistreatment" at the hands of Kim Jong Un's regime as "awful" and "torturous".
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At his public memorial hundreds of emotional mourners gathered to say goodbye at Wyoming High School in the suburbs of the city.
In a statement issued earlier, his family said: "It would be easy at a moment like this to focus on all that we lost — future time that won't be spent with a warm, engaging, brilliant young man whose curiosity and enthusiasm for life knew no bounds.
"We choose to focus on the time we were given to be with this remarkable person.
"You can tell from the outpouring of emotion from the communities that he touched — Wyoming, Ohio, and the University of Virginia to name just two — that the love for Otto went well beyond his immediate family."
And speaking outside the memorial, Ohio's Republican senator Rob Portman said Otto was an "amazing young man" — adding that North Korea must be held accountable.
Otto's exact cause of death is unclear as his family made the unexpected request to decline an autopsy — although reports suggested he contracted botulism just a day after his sentencing last year.
Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, who described Otto as being in a state of "unresponsive wakefulness" when he arrived back in the US last week, would not provide more information.
At an earlier memorial service on Tuesday night, students at the university remembered Otto as outgoing and energetic.
"Being with Otto made life all the more beautiful," Alex Vagonis, Warmbier's girlfriend, said.
Responding to news of Otto's death, President Donald Trump said: "Melania and I offer our deepest condolences to the family of Otto Warmbier on his untimely passing.
"There is nothing more tragic for a parent than to lose a child in the prime of life.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Otto's family and friends, and all who loved him.
"Otto's fate deepens my Administration's determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.
"The United States once again condemns the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim".
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