The US student recently released from detention in North Korea with severe brain damage has died.

Otto Warmbier, US student sent home from N Korea, dies

It sounds as if he may have been set up by the North Koreans in order to contrive his arrest and imprisonment, before they did whatever they did to turn him a into vegetable.

Otto Warmbier: How did North Korea holiday end in jail, and a coma?

"However there was no rowdy behaviour - "It wasn't that sort of holiday," Mr Gratton said. "We toed the line." He said there was "no indication at all" that Otto had taken the hotel propaganda sign and he had not mentioned it. The North Korean government has released grainy video footage showing a dark figure whose face cannot be seen removing a sign in a corridor."

Tragic story of the US student freed by North Korea, brain damaged

"Fred Warmbier lashed out at the tour company, Young Pioneer Tours, and accused North Korea of endangering Americans by using tour companies to lure them to the North, where they can be taken into custody. He dismissed the North’s explanation of his son’s condition."

Maybe he wasn't a vegetable.

Otto Warmbier: Trump condemns 'brutal' N Korea as student dies

"They wrote: "When Otto returned to Cincinnati late on June 13, he was unable to speak, unable to see and unable to react to verbal commands.

"He looked very uncomfortable - almost anguished. Although we would never hear his voice again, within a day, the countenance of his face changed - he was at peace. He was home, and we believe he could sense that.""
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40337991

"The BBC's Steve Evans in Seoul says the North Korean account clearly cannot be taken at face value.

He says it is not known when Mr Warmbier had fallen into his coma and that there must be a suspicion it was quite recently, as the US was only told at the beginning of this month about his health situation.

The North Koreans may have realised there was the possibility of an American citizen dying on their hands, our correspondent says."

It seems odd he should die so soon after being released, especially if he had been in a coma for months. I wonder if the North Koreans knew how long he was likely to live if they had applied the same treatment to other people. They are clearly inventive, given how they killed Kim Jong Un's half-brother. Perhaps they applied the treatment in anticipation of his release. Trump was calling KJU a "smart cookie" only a few months ago. Would Trump being US president have made NK treat this hostage as they did or would they have done that anyway?

And, of course, there is the "do we believe the American media?" angle; who knows where the truth lies; only what both sides want us to think.