US - North Korea Relations: Trump To Meet Parents Of Otto Warmbier At White House More Than Year After Controversial Death

President Donald Trump is set to have dinner Saturday night at the White House with the parents of Otto Warmbier, the deceased American college student who died in June 2017 after being held captive 17 months in North Korea. The Warmbiers believe their son was tortured by the North Koreans, which left him in a comatose state when he returned to the U.S.

Other U.S. officials expected at tonight's meeting include Richard Grenell, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, who is one of Trump's top choices for National Security Adviser since the firing of John Bolton earlier this week.

Warmbier was taken captive in January 2016, after allegedly stealing a propaganda poster at his hotel while on a tourist trip. Warmbier was put under arrest by North Korean authorities at Pyongyang International Airport as he attempted to take his departure flight.

When the then-22-year-old returned to the U.S. in June 2017, his head had been shaved and his parents claimed he was blind and deaf, while doctors said that he suffered from a severe neurological injury. Warmbier died six days after arriving in the U.S.

North Korea has said that it is the "biggest victim" in the Warmbier case and that the U.S. and South Korea have launched a smear campaign against Pyongyang.

"North Korea is not a victim," Otto Warmbier's father, Fred, said on Fox News. "They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims."

Trump, while at a meeting North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February, said that Kim did not know about Warmbier's captivity, and that the North Korean leader felt "very badly about it."

In response to Trump, the Warmbiers released a statement which said "Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. No excuses or lavish praise can change that. Thank you."

The human rights monitor Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called North Korea "one of the world's most repressive states." HRW said that Pyongyang "routinely uses arbitrary arrest and punishment of crimes, torture in custody and executions to maintain control over the population."