Arrests have been made following the murder of Kim Jong Nam.
The 45-year-old half brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was found dead at Kuala Lumpur International airport on Monday. According to reports, he was killed after being poisoned while he waited to board a flight to Macau.
South Korean media reports that the killing was carried out by two female assassins believed to be secret agents, who fled the scene via taxi.
On Wednesday, a 28-year-old woman named Doan Thin Hoang, who was carrying a Vietnamese passport, was arrested. The Royal Malaysia Police announced that she was "positively identified" from CCTV footage captured at Kuala Lumpur International Airport's Terminal 2. She is set to appear in court.
And on Thursday morning, Malaysian police announced that they had arrested a second woman believed to be connected to the incident. She was identified as 25-year-old Siti Aishah and was carrying an Indonesian passport.
The taxi driver in his 30s who picked the women up was also arrested.
Footage showing one of the suspects wearing a sweatshirt with the phrase "LOL" emblazoned across the front was released yesterday. Other images showed at least one of the women waiting for a cab in front of the airport.
Up to four male suspects are also believed to be connected to the incident.
There are conflicting reports about how Kim Jong Nam was poisoned.
Police said that Kim Jong Nam arrived to the airport on Monday morning to take an 10.50am AirAsia flight to Macau after having spent a week in Malaysia. At around 9am he was approached by two fair-skinned women from opposite sides. One of the women touched his face with a cloth that allegedly had been contaminated with an unidentified liquid that burned his eyes before both of them departed the scene in separate directions. The whole event lasted around 15 seconds.
Some media are also reporting that he may have been killed by needles or chemical spray. One widely circulating report suggests that a fountain pen was involved. A Yonhap infographic illustrated how the confrontation allegedly went down:
Kim Jong Nam then went to a nearby airport counter to ask for help, saying that he felt dizzy. He was taken to the airport clinic and later transported to a nearby hospital. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
South Korean media report that the autopsy took seven hours to complete, though it's not clear when (or if) the results will be made public. According to The Telegraph, North Korea objected to the procedure and demanded the body to be returned, but Malaysian authorities went ahead with the autopsy anyway.
The North Korean embassy in Malaysia had no comment on the incident, though CNN reports that a car with DPRK flags was spotted entering Putrajaya Hospital's mortuary, where his body was believed to be held.
Journalists outside the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur
Previously seen as the successor of his late father Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Nam fell out of favor after a heavily-publicized botched attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland using a fake passport in May 2001. He holds no official title in the Worker’s Party of Korea and was absent from his father's funeral in 2011.
Kim Jong Nam and his family have been under Chinese protection. Yonhap reports that his first wife is currently staying in Beijing with a son, while his second wife lives in Macau with a daughter and son. Kim Jong Nam was on his way to Macau when the incident occured.
South Korean officials claim Kim Jong Nam had pleaded for his life after he was forced into exile.
“We have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. We are well aware that the only way to escape is suicide,” Kim Jong Nam wrote in a letter to his half brother five years ago, according to The Guardian.
Sources told the South China Morning Post that Kim Jong Nam "felt he was living on borrowed time" in Macau.
“He knew his life was at risk," an unnamed source claiming to be his friend in Macau told the SCMP. "He was aware his brother was after him.”
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