Malaysia detains woman over murder of half-brother of North Korea leader

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Malaysia detains woman over murder of half-brother of North Korea leader

 

SEOUL/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police on Wednesday detained a woman holding Vietnam travel papers and are looking for a "few" other foreign suspects in connection with the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother, police said.

 

Lawmakers in South Korea had earlier cited their spy agency as saying it suspected two female North Korean agents had murdered Kim Jong Nam, and U.S. government sources also told Reuters they believed North Korean assassins were responsible.

 

The portly and gregarious Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, was assaulted on Monday morning in the departure hall of Kuala Lumpur International Airport and died on the way to hospital, Malaysian police said.

 

The woman detained at Kuala Lumpur airport was identified from CCTV footage at the airport and was alone when she was apprehended, police said in a statement.Media had earlier published a grainy CCTV-captured image of a young woman wearing a white shirt with the letters "LOL" on the front.

 

Documents she carried were in the name of Doan Thi Huong, showed a birth date of May 1998 and birthplace of Nam Dinh, Vietnam, police said.

 

"Police are looking for a few others, all foreigners," Deputy Inspector-General Noor Rashid Ibrahim told Reuters, declining to give their nationalities or gender.

 

South Korean intelligence believes Kim Jong Nam was poisoned, the lawmakers in South Korea's capital, Seoul, said.

 

The spy agency told them that the young and unpredictable North Korean leader had issued a "standing order" for his half-brother's assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.

 

"The cause of death is strongly suspected to be a poisoning attack," said South Korean lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, who was briefed by the spy agency.

 

Kim had been at the airport's budget terminal to catch a flight to Macau on Monday when someone grabbed or held his face from behind, after which he felt dizzy and sought help at an information desk, Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat said.

 

According to South Korea's spy agency, Kim Jong Nam had been living, under Beijing's protection, with his second wife in the Chinese territory of Macau, the lawmakers said. One of them said Kim Jong Nam also had a wife and son in Beijing.

Kim had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated state.

 

"If the murder of Kim Jong Nam was confirmed to be committed by the North Korean regime, that would clearly depict the brutality and inhumanity of the Kim Jong Un regime," South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is also acting president, told a security meeting.

 

The meeting was called in response to Kim Jong Nam's death, news of which first emerged late on Tuesday.

 

'SENSE OF DANGER'

 

South Korea is acutely sensitive to any sign of instability in isolated North Korea, and is still technically in a state of war with its impoverished and nuclear-armed neighbour, which carried out its latest ballistic missile test on Sunday.

Malaysian police said Kim held a passport under the name Kim Chol, with a birth date that made him 46.

 

Kim Jong Nam was known to spend a significant amount of time outside North Korea, travelling in Macau and Hong Kong as well as mainland China, and has been caught in the past using forged travel documents.

 

His body was taken on Wednesday to a second hospital, where an autopsy was being performed. North Korean embassy officials had arrived at the hospital and were coordinating with authorities, police sources said.

 

There was no mention of Kim Jong Nam's death in North Korean media.

 

In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman said China was aware of the reports and closely following developments.

 

Yoji Gomi, a Japanese journalist who wrote a 2012 book on Kim Jong Nam, said Kim's media appearances, which increased around the time South Korean intelligence said he was targeted for assassination, may have been an attempt to protect himself.

 

"I now have the impression that even he may have had a sense of danger, so he began exposing himself in the media and stating his opinions to protect himself and counter North Korea," Gomi told a talk show on Japan's NTV.

 

North Korean agents have killed rivals abroad before.

 

South Korea's spy agency said Kim Jong Nam wrote a letter to Kim Jong Un in 2012 asking that the lives of him and his family be spared, one of the lawmakers said.

 

"Kim Jong Un may have been worried about more and more North Korean elites turning against him after Thae Yong Ho defected to the South," said Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on the North Korean leadership at Dongguk University in Seoul, referring to last year's defection by North Korea's deputy ambassador in London.

 

Numerous North Korean officials have been purged or killed since Kim Jong Un took power following his father's death in 2011. Those include his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was considered the country's second most-powerful person and was believed to have been close to Kim Jong Nam.

 

Jang was executed on Kim Jong Un's orders in 2013.

 

(Reporting by Ju-min Park, Cynthia Kim, Hyunjoo Jin and Yun Hwan Chae in SEOUL, Joseph Sipalan, Praveen Menon and Emily Chow in KUALA LUMPUR, and Philip Wen in BEIJING; Writing by Tony Munroe and John Chalmers)
 

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-02-15

[webfact]

Malaysia arrests second woman in suspected assassination of Kim Jong Nam

REUTERS

 

A North Korea embassy official sits outside a morgue at Kuala Lumpur General Hospital, where the body of Kim Jong Nam is held for autopsy, in Malaysia February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

 

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has detained a second woman suspected in the apparent assassination of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, state news agency Bernama reported on Thursday, citing the inspector general of police.

 

The other woman being held in connection with the slaying of Kim Jong Nam was due to be brought to a Kuala Lumpur court on Thursday. Police had said they were hunting a her accomplices.

 

Lawmakers in South Korea earlier cited their spy agency as saying it suspected two female North Korean agents had murdered Kim Jong Nam. U.S. government sources also said they believed North Korean assassins were responsible.

 

Bernama gave no details about the latest arrest, but Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar told the news agency an official statement would be issued later.

 

A Malaysian government source confirmed to Reuters that first suspect detained was the same woman whose image was captured by close circuit television footage and published by media. The grainy picture showed her wearing a white shirt with the letters "LOL" on the front.

 

She had been apprehended on Wednesday at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, two days after Kim Jong Nam was assaulted there with what was believed to be a fast acting poison.

 

Police said she was alone when she was picked up, and held travel documents in the name of Doan Thi Huong, showed a birth date of May 1988 and birthplace of Nam Dinh, Vietnam.

 

"Police are looking for a few others, all foreigners," Deputy Inspector-General Noor Rashid Ibrahim told Reuters, declining to give their nationalities or gender.

 

There was still no mention of Kim Jong Nam's death in North Korean state media as of Thursday morning. At midnight, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark the birthday of his father, the late leader Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.

 

South Korea's intelligence agency told lawmakers in Seoul, that the young and unpredictable North Korean leader had issued a "standing order" for his elder half-brother's assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.

 

"The cause of death is strongly suspected to be a poisoning attack," said South Korean lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, who was briefed by the spy agency.

 

Malaysian police said Kim had been at the airport's budget terminal to catch a flight to Macau on Monday when someone grabbed or held his face from behind, after which he felt dizzy and sought help at an information desk.

 

Malaysian authorities rebuffed North Korean officials efforts to stop an autopsy being carried out on Kim Jong Nam, three Malaysian government sources familiar with the stand-off told Reuters.

 

(Reporting by Jospeh Sipalan and A.Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-02-16

 

[Srikcir]

Send Kim Jong Nam's body back in a sealed metal casket to Kim Jong Il - with a nuclear IED in the bottom.

 

[Rhys]

• no photos?
•  

[connda]

It would be interesting to know what contact poison can kill in 15 seconds. Spooks <brrrrrr>

[mikecha]

Hay Guys/Ladies 

 

try keep a sensible comment on this

it is a hard place to work and not bad they do look after foreigners while u are there 

 

many stories are blown  up    i have been there many times making food industry     never a problem  

like thailand do as the thais or do as the koreans no problem

 

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Malaysia arrests third suspect in connection with murder of Kim Jong Nam

A woman who was detained at Kuala Lumpur airport, identified from CCTV footage at the airport and who was alone when she was apprehended, according to police in a statement, is seen circled in red in this still frame taken from video released February 16, 2017, showing CCTV footage courtesy of Star TV. MANDATORY CREDIT STAR TV Via REUTERS TV

 

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police on Thursday detained a third suspect in connection with the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, an officer said.

 

"He was detained to facilitate investigations as he is the boyfriend of the second suspect," Selangor state police chief Abu Samah Mat told Reuters.

 

He was referring to a woman arrested earlier in the day. She was holding an Indonesian passport. On Wednesday, a female suspect with Vietnamese travel documents was arrested.

 

(Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-02-16

 

[ddavidovsky]

Indonesian woman and her boyfriend? Vietnamese woman? They're just arresting people at random to give the appearance of doing something.

[Catoni]

1 hour ago, connda said:

It would be interesting to know what contact poison can kill in 15 seconds. Spooks <brrrrrr>

   Who said 15 seconds?    They said he had enought time to talk to security people and tell them that he was sprayed in the face with a chemical..... and they said he died on the way to the hospital..    Where did you see 15 seconds ? ? 

[Ulic]

Perp walk and pictures please.

[JemJem]

I am no fan of that regime, but just because almost all the international media etc is heavily anti-NK, why do we have to assume  that the NK government is responsible for the guy's death ?!

 

Let's just wait for some details etc to come out.

 

I wish the international media etc  would , for example, concentrate on Erdogan, who I think is more of a menace to the world overall than Kim.

[stevenl]

I am no fan of that regime, but just because almost all the international media etc is heavily anti-NK, why do we have to assume  that the NK government is responsible for the guy's death ?!
 
Let's just wait for some details etc to come out.
 
I wish the international media etc  would , for example, concentrate on Erdogan, who I think is more of a menace to the world overall than Kim.

I do agree that at the moment erdogan is much more of a menace. But it is pretty clear that NK is responsible for his death.

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[Srikcir]

14 hours ago, ddavidovsky said:

arresting people at random

The boyfriend of the second suspect is hardly random.

Malaysia supports capital punishment for murder. This might encourage either of the first two suspects to cooperate with authorities to identify other conspirators.

[Srikcir]

'Kim’s assassins part of six-strong squad, say Malaysian police'

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/kim-s-assassins-part-of-six-strong-squad-say-malaysian-police-09xk8f67t

 

Malaysian police are moving with impressive speed on Kim's assassination. No mulling, no committees, no road trips.