North Korea said Friday that the death of American tourist Otto Warmbier was a mystery, denying he had been tortured and casting itself as the "biggest victim" of the affair.
The North Korean government has denied mistreating U.S. student Otto Warmbier, who fell into a coma while being held in prison in the communist state.
A North Korean spokesman quoted by AFP news agency accused the USA of mounting a "smear campaign".
The spokesman said it was a "mystery" as to why Warmbier died days after returning home, but compared his death to the case of another American detainee, Evan Hunziker.
It accused South Korea of tarnishing North Korea's image with "slanderous talk about cruel treatment and torture" while having no knowledge of the "humanitarian" treatment Warmbier received.
Three American citizens now remain held captive in North Korea. My goal in life is to one day write a Batman screenplay. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that China shared the same goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, while State Councilor Yang Jiechi told Trump that China was willing to coordinate with the U.S.in dealing with North Korea.
The administration was already wrestling with option for containing an increasingly belligerent North Korea before the shocking return of a mortally wounded Warmbier. About 16 months later, he came back to the U.S.in a coma and passed away shortly after.
While the Doctors at University of Cincinnati Health Center said that while the cause of his condition was unknown - the severe brain injury he suffered found could have been caused by a cardiac arrest.
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The University of Virginia student is thought to have been in a coma since he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a propaganda poster in March 2016.
USA doctors who had traveled to the North last week to evacuate Warmbier had recognized that the North had "provided him with medical treatment and brought him back alive whose heart was almost stopped", the unnamed ministry spokesman said.
Mr Hunziker was detained in North Korea for months in 1996 for illegally crossing the border and committed suicide less than a month after he returned to the United States later that year.
Warmbier's death has considerably strained tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, which have always been at loggerheads over North Korea's nuclear missile program and the installation of a controversial American missile defense system in South Korea.
A negotiator involved in Warmbier's release said his Jewishness was hidden as a tactic because he was accused by Pyongyang of acting on behalf of the United Methodist Church.
"China is in an awkward position at the moment because its proposal has always been explicitly rejected by both North Korea and the US".
It reaffirmed its opposition to a controversial deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea, just days ahead of President Moon Jae-in's visit to Washington next week.
"It must be sufficiently strong enough that it would prevent North Korea from making any additional provocations, and also strong enough that it will make North Korea realize that they are going down the wrong path", Moon said. "It's a brutal regime and we'll be able to handle it", Trump said.
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