Dennis Rodman Defends ‘Friend’ Kim Jong Un After Otto Warmbier’s Death

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman apparently asked his friend, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, three times to release the American college student Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned for pulling down a poster of Kim and wound up becoming brain dead while in captivity and dying hours later when he was sent back to the states.

In an interview with ABC News, Dennis’s agent credited the release of Otto altogether with Dennis’s visit earlier this month.

“I asked on behalf of Dennis for [Warmbier’s] release three times,” Chris Volo told ABC as Rodman stood beside him. He added: “I addressed … Otto Warmbier. I said to them, ‘we … would need his … you know, a release, some type of good faith’ … They said they understood.”

Otto spent over a year in a North Korean prison.

When GMA co-host Michael Strahan asked Dennis how he could be friends with such a leader as Kim Jon Un, he responded, “I’m not saying I would die for him. He’s a friend of mine, okay, great. I don’t look at the political side about him. I look at the friendship about him. I was just so happy to see the kid released. Later that day, that’s when we found out he was ill, no one knew that. We jumped up and down … Some good things came of this trip.”

Dennis Rodman Kim Jong Un North Korea Otto Warmbier