The father of Otto Warmbier has angered North Korea
Fred Warmbier's trip to the Olympics in South Korea at the invitation of Vice President Mike Pence provoked a sharp response from a North Korean official, the Washington Post is reporting.
"The United States is again kicking up a defamation campaign against the DPRK, intentionally attributing Warmbier's death to the latter," the official from the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Institute for American Studies was quoted by The Post as saying.
The Warmbier's, of Wyoming, Ohio, have criticized the totalitarian regime in North Korea since their son, Otto Warmbier, was arrested in the country 2016.
North Korea accused Otto Warmbier of stealing a propaganda poster. He was detained for 17 months before being sent back home last year in a coma. He never woke up and died shortly after returning to Cincinnati.
His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, attended the State of the Union as guests of first lady Melania Trump.
