Otto Warmbier's tearful parents receive standing ovation during State of the Union

President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address featured many special honorees, but one of the most poignant moments of the night involved the parents of deceased American student Otto Warmbier.

Warmbier, 22, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after being convicted of trying to steal a propaganda poster from his North Korean hotel in May 2016.

The University of Virginia student was imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months before being returned to the United States in a coma in June 2017. He died less than a week after he was sent back to his family.

His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, were visibly emotional on Tuesday night after President Donald Trump denounced "the cruel dictatorship in North Korea" and pointed to the couple's experience as evidence of Kim Jong Un's brutality.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all," Trump told the Warmbiers. "Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve."

The stirring comments brought the crowd to its feet and reduced the bereaved parents to tears.

Photos from the moving moment:

When Warmbier was released from prison in June 2017, North Korea told American officials that he'd contracted botulism and fell into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

Medical officials in the U.S. said that Warmbier's scans showed extensive loss of brain tissue consistent with cardiac arrest that deprived the brain of oxygen. Contrary to what North Korean officials said, doctors could not find any evidence of botulism in his system.

According to accounts given by Warmbier's parents, his injuries appeared to be more consistent with torture.

"Otto had a shaved head, he had a feeding tube coming out of his nose, he was staring blankly into space, jerking violently," Fred Warmbier told Fox and Friends in a September 2017 interview. "He was blind. He was deaf. As we looked at him and tried to comfort him, it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth."

The Warmbiers said at the time that although they originally hoped to stay out of the spotlight in order to grieve in private, they decided to speak out after North Korea denied it cruelly treated or tortured their son.

"Now we see North Korea claiming to be a victim, and that the world is picking on them," said Fred Warmbier. "We're here to tell you North Korea is not a victim, they’re terrorists, they kidnapped Otto, they tortured him, they intentionally injured him."

SEE: A timeline of Otto Warmbier's North Korean imprisonment: