We said, at the time of Mr. Warmbier's arrest and conviction, that North Korea has a history of obtaining global prisoners who later can be used as political bargaining chips.
Before his trial, Warmbier had said he tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church.
She said US officials had a hard time getting information about Warmbier from North Korea.
Tillerson said the State Department secured his release at Trump's direction, and a spokeswoman was firm in saying Rodman's trip had nothing to do with Warmbier's release.
But he noted that the State Department is continuing "to have discussions" with North Korea about the release of other three American citizens who are jailed there. They say North Koreans told US authorities that their son contracted botulism and never awoke after he was given a sleeping pill.
Things took an interesting turn on Tuesday, when news broke that an American college student who had been detained in North Korea for 17 months was being medically evacuated from the country.
Mr Warmbier was carried off a medical transport plane that landed in Cincinnati and was having treatment at a hospital in the city today.
"We get to see our son Otto tonight", Fred Warmbier told The Washington Post earlier Tuesday. He has said he is just going to have a good time but has also hinted he is "trying to open a door" for better relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
The State Department says former National Basketball Association star Dennis Rodman, who is visiting North Korea, had nothing to do with the release of a detained American college student.
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Analyst Daniel Pinkston, a lecturer at Troy University, said he did not believe that Rodman was going as a back-channel emissary from Trump despite United States media speculation.
In the 1990s he visited at President Clinton's request to secure the release of the pilot of a USA helicopter downed after unintentionally straying across the DMZ during a routine training mission (a second pilot was killed); and to bring home an American man accused of espionage after swimming across a river on the North Korea-China border.
According to some intelligence reports, Warmbier was repeatedly beaten while imprisoned in North Korea.
The star has visited the Stalinist state at least four times before, most recently in 2014, when he attracted a deluge of criticism after being filmed singing happy birthday to his "friend for life", leader Kim.
He, added: "North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behaviour". "We strongly, strongly suggest that Americans do not go to North Korea". President Donald Trump has been promising to exert "maximum pressure" on North Korea to make it abandon its nuclear weapons program, but has also dangled the prospect of talks with Kim, whom he called a "smart cookie". "Thank God", they told CNN.
Critics of Trump, meanwhile, also like to point to the eerie echoes of the Kim regime in the USA president's own behavior.
The State Department said President Trump had been consulted. "We are so grateful that he will finally be with people who love him". Warmbier was released by North Korea, where he was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts. "He doesn't deserve this", Fred Warmbier told the Enquirer last month in an interview. Shortly after Warmbier's sentencing, Kim Dong-chul, was arrested on accusations of espionage, and has been held ever since.
Mr Rodman is a friend of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and has made several visits to the country in recent years. In 2013, ahead of his first trip, I wrote a tipsheet for Rodman on the vile record of the North Korean regime.
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