American student Otto Warmbier, centre, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea. in 2016. Photo / AP file
A federal court judge issued an order for North Korea to pay the parents of Otto Warmbier more than $500 million ($740m), holding the country liable for the death of their son.
In a strongly-worded opinion, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia
said the large award was necessary to punish and deter North Korea.
"North Korea is liable for the torture, hostage taking, and extrajudicial killing of Otto Warmbier, and the injuries to his mother and father, Fred and Cindy Warmbier," Howell wrote.
"Before Otto travelled with a tour group on a five-day trip to North Korea, he was a healthy, athletic student of economics and business in his junior year at the University of Virginia, with 'big dreams' and both the smarts and people skills to make him his high school class salutatorian, homecoming king, and prom king," Howell wrote.
"He was blind, deaf, and brain dead when North Korea turned him over to US government officials for his final trip home."
