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"It's been three months since Otto has died and we buried him. And our family has had time to come together and process this horrible situation, do some healing, but now we see North Korea claiming to be a victim and that the world is picking on them and we're here to tell you, North Korea is not a victim. They're terrorists. They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims. They are terrorists," Fred Warmbier told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" Tuesday morning.See also: U.S. coroner: No evidence North Korea tortured U.S. prisoner Otto Warmbier
"They destroyed him," Cindy Warmbier said.
"They purposely and intentionally injured Otto," Fred Warmbier added.
Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was traveling in the country when he was accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster. He was sentenced to hard labor after a trial. The Trump administration later secured his release.
The couple recounted the first time the family saw the 22-year-old upon his return to the U.S. from North Korea.
"We thought he was in a coma, but you couldn't call it a coma. When I talked to Sen. [Rob] Portman that morning, he said Otto was on a plane coming home and I asked him 'Is there brain damage?' He said 'There is severe brain damage,' " Cindy recounted. "So, what we pictured because we are optimists was that Otto would be asleep and maybe in a medically induced coma and then when our doctors here would work with him and he would get the best care and love that he would come out of it."
The father said their hopes were dashed upon boarding the plane to see their son.
"It was myself, Cindy, Austin, and Greta. We walked over to the plane. The engines are still humming. They had just landed. We walked up the steps. When we got halfway up the steps, we heard this howling, involuntary inhuman sound. We weren't really certain what it was. We climbed to the top of the steps, and we looked in and Otto was on the stretcher across in the plane and he was jerking violently, making these inhuman sounds.
"Cindy and Greta ran off the plane. Austin and I walked over to Otto. Otto had a shaved head. He had a feeding tube coming out of his nose. He had - he was staring blankly into space, jerking violently. He was blind. He was deaf. As we looked at him and tried to comfort him it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth. Within two days of Otto being home, his fever spiked to 104 degrees. He had a large scar on his right foot," Fred Warmbier said.
The parents called for North Korea to be classified as a state sponsor of terror.
Any government is entitled to label anyone they want a terrorist (e.g. US, UK, France and Israel)
The NK government can quite legitimately label an American "tourist" a terrorist