> But a westerner is normally kept in a hotel room in NK until an agreement has been reached and then he is released.

This is not true. There have been multiple stories, such as the two journalists released a while back, that they are kept in small cement cells, often without light. It may vary depending on the person but I haven't heard someone being held in anything other than a typical prison cell.

They aren't beaten or physically abused but they do undergo some long-lasting psychological abuse.

Their stay usually lasts months as well.

They took care of him after the incident that caused brain damage, but is there any proof the incident itself was botulism?

His doctors say the pattern of brain damage does not match that of botulism. More symptomatic of a respiratory arrest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJKmyCKM7W0

The pattern of brain injury they're referring to is probably "anoxic brain injury." Botulism itself doesn't cause that, but it certainly can cause respiratory failure (by paralyzing the phrenic nerve), which can then cause anoxic brain injury. There's no reliable way to tell at this point whether botulism was the cause in Warmbier's case (there's no test to find out after the fact). I'm an MD.

Of course the NK story is very suspect. We need more information, but it seems unlikely that we'll get it.

We're sure that he wasn't because he was beaten though, right?

There hasn't been any US prisoners in NK who were physically abused during their stay for PR purposes. I'm curious if he sustained a fall or some other accidental injury. Maybe he caused it himself and didn't get proper treatment.

He was held for an unusually long time compared to most people.

No. We don't know what happened. I am not an MD. I am sure there are many options what could happened.

But the way he was taken care of and returned (they could have claimed he died) seems to suggest that he was not put into this condition on purpose.

He was only returned after the Swedish embassy learned about his condition. He had already been in a coma for a year by then and would have stayed in the DPRK for the remainder of his sentence otherwise.

If they claimed that a man in his twenties had died of a heart attack as they did with Japanese citizens they abducted, that would have been an even bigger scandal.

>But there was a lot of anger regarding what happened to Warmbier.

The news coverage of the incident has seemed rather strange to me. Nobody would be shocked if he had exited an US prison in a coma, although I guess people don't get out for "humanitarian reasons" in the US. (Except once every 4/8 years, I guess)

I think the outrage is moreso because he wasn't a spy or someone trying to attack DPRK or the North Koreans. He was imprisoned on relatively minor (speaking in context) charges and instead of simply being held prisoner seems to have suffered permanent disability.

Yes, and I'm trying to say that this would be nothing out of the ordinary for someone imprisoned for minor crimes in the US.

I mean in the US they regularly cook prisoners to death http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2009/09/dog-days-tu...

Wow... what did I just read....

I knew the prisoner situation in the US was harsh but this is unbelievable.