North Korea calls Trump a ‘psychopath’ in war of words over Warmbier’s death

North Korea has lashed out at US President Donald Trump calling him a “psychopath” as tensions escalates between the two countries after the death of American student Otto Warmbier who was released in a coma from North Korean detention last week.
 

The 22-year-old was returned comatose to the US last week with a severe neurological injury after 18 months in captivity in the Hermit Kingdom.

American student Otto Warmbier, centre, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea In March 16, 2016. Picture: APSource:AP

According to Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, it claimed that Trump was mulling an idea of a pre-emptive strike on North Korea to divert attention from a domestic political crisis. 

“South Korea must realise that following psychopath Trump … will only lead to disaster,” said an editorial in the paper, the New York Post reports.

The death of Warmbier — who was sentenced to 15 years for stealing a propaganda poster in a hotel has further strained relations between Pyongyang and Washington that had already reached a high due to the rogue nation’s series of ballistic missile tests.

Trump slammed the “brutal regime” in Pyongyang, saying he was determined to “prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.”