The parents of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died after suffering injuries in detention in North Korea, have filed a petition to seize the North Korean bulker Wise Honest in order to satisfy a court award for wrongful death.
After Warmbier’s death in 2017, his family filed a civil suit against the government of North Korea in U.S. federal court. Last December, a judge ruled in favor of the family and awarded them a judgement of $500 million. The parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, say that North Korea has not been willing to discuss a settlement, and they will move instead to seize Pyongyang’s assets to partially fulfill the judgment.
The bulker Wise Honest is currently in American custody. She was seized in Indonesia last year after Indonesian authorities caught her off East Kalimantan carrying 25,000 tonnes of North Korean coal; North Korea’s commodity trading is tightly restricted under UN and U.S. sanctions
Read more at Maritime Executive
