North Korea Hands United States a $2-Million Bill

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Denise Najera, Sports Recorder

North Korea is demanding the United States pay $2 million dollars for Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was held as a prisoner by Pyongyang.

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In 2016, an American college student planned to have a five day trip to North Korea. On January 2, 2016, Warmbier was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while awaiting departure from North Korea. He was accused of attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel, for which he was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment with hard labor according to the North Korean government.  After being held captive for only 17 months, he was  released back to his family brain-dead and his family believes he “was tortured into a vegetative state”.

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Still, North Korea is demanding the U.S. pay for the hospital “care” they took for Otto. Although, Trump administration plans on not paying the bill. According to them, the North Koreans never brought up the issue before, so why now. “Please remember that any money to a terrorist or terrorist regime gives money so that they can seize more of our people,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We cannot accept that risk. You wouldn’t ask that of us.”

While the North Koreans did not bring up the bill during Trump’s summits with Kim Jong Un in Singapore and Vietnam, the source noted that the expectation for this payment could be brought up again.