{"id":211535,"date":"2019-04-26T22:23:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T02:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=211535"},"modified":"2019-04-26T22:23:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T02:23:47","slug":"trump-denies-paying-north-korea-2m-for-us-detainees-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/26\/trump-denies-paying-north-korea-2m-for-us-detainees-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump denies paying North Korea $2M for US detainee’s care"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Trump’s statements coincided with people across the country marching Saturday in opposition to his immigration policies. (Photo<\/a>: @realdonaldtrump\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. did not pay $2 million to North Korea in 2017 to get American college student Otto Warmbier released from detention.<\/p>\n

Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, died in June 2017 shortly after he was flown home comatose after 17 months in captivity. He had been seized from a tour group while visiting North Korea in January 2016 and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.<\/p>\n

North Korea, which has denied accusations by relatives that it tortured Warmbier, has said he was provided \u201cmedical treatments and care with all sincerity.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Thursday that a U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier signed an agreement to pay the $2 million on Trump’s instructions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter. The Washington Post first reported the demand.<\/p>\n

Trump dismissed the reports and insisted no money was paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not pay money for our great Otto,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House. \u201cThere was no money paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a fake news report that money was paid. I haven’t paid money for any hostage that I’ve gotten. We don’t pay money for hostages. The Otto case was a very unusual case. But no money was paid for Otto.\u201d<\/p>\n

North Korea has denied accusations by Warmbier’s relatives that the student was tortured during captivity.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/p>\n

This story has been corrected to note that Warmbier died in 2017, not last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. did not pay $2 million to North Korea in 2017 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":162681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-deb-riechmann","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211536,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211535\/revisions\/211536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}