American college student Otto Warmbier only intended to spend five days sightseeing in North Korea in 2016.

Instead, he spent 17 months there in detention where his family believes he was tortured into a vegetative state, reports the CNN.

On Monday, less than a week after returning to the United States with severe brain damage, his family announced Warmbier had “completed his journey home.” The 22-year-old died Monday afternoon in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his family at his side.

The student's death elicited strong repudiations of the regime from the highest levels of the American government. The news could lead the US to take a tougher line on China, the hermit regime's closest ally, as the two superpowers begin high level talks this week. It also prompted the tour group that facilitated Warmbier's visit to end trips to North Korea for Americans.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who helped push for Warmbier's release, said the United States holds North Korea “accountable” for an unjust imprisonment.

The North Korean government said he fell into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill in March 2016. But US doctors said they found no evidence of the illness.

“Let us state the facts plainly: Otto Warmbier, an American citizen, was murdered by the Kim Jong Un regime,” said US Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

President Donald Trump condemned the “brutal regime” and lamented the loss of a young man “in the prime of life.”

BDST: 1515 HRS, JUNE 20, 2017
AP