Two more North Korean officials are wanted for the murder of Kim Jong-nam

Kim Jong-un’s half brother was reportedly poisoned in Kuala Lumpur’s airport and there are claims the killing was authorised by the despotic North Korean government.

Malaysia’s police chief also announced another North Korean airline employee is wanted in relation to the killing. Both suspects are still believed to be in the country. </s> Kim Jong-nam reportedly poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by female North Korean operatives, S Korean media says.

The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been killed in Malaysia, the Yonhap News Agency and other South Korean media outlets reported on Tuesday, citing unidentified sources.

Yonhap, citing a South Korean government source, said Kim Jong-nam was killed on Monday morning in Malaysia. It gave no more details.

TV Chosun, a cable television network, said separately that Kim was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two women believed to be North Korean operatives, who were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.

The reports could not be independently verified.

Malaysian police told the Reuters news agency an unidentified North Korean man died en route to hospital from a Kuala Lumpur airport.

The police said the man's identity had not been verified.

Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-un are both sons of former leader Kim Jong-il, who died in late 2011, but they had different mothers.

In 2001, Kim Jong-nam was caught at an airport in Japan travelling on a fake passport, saying he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was known to travel to Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China.

He said several times over the years that he had no interest in leading his country.

"Personally, I am against third-generation succession," he told Japan's Asahi TV in 2010, before his younger brother had succeeded their father.

"I hope my younger brother will do his best for the sake of North Koreans' prosperous lives." </s> Malaysian police said the highly toxic chemical – classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the UN – was found at the crime scene after Kim Jong-nam was killed. Kim, 45, was the oldest son of Kim Jong-ill, the current leader's father and predeccesor.

Initial reports by South Korean media say he was killed at Kuala Lumpur airport by two women, said to be North Korean operatives, carrying a "poisoned needle". The substance believed to be used in the killing is extremely potent, with just 10 milligrams being a lethal dose.

Kim-Jong-nam had spent the best part of a decade in exile, having fallen out of favour with his late father. He was born out of wedlock to Kim-Jong-il and his mistress, the actress and Song Hye-rim.

He had been favourite to replace Kim Jong-il until he was arrested at a Tokyo airport in 2001 with a forged passport trying to get to Disneyland. The incident caused great embarrassment to the leader, and Nam was exiled to China, where he lived in Macau on the south coast.

When his younger sibling Kim Jong-un became leader in 2011, Kim Jong-nam went into hiding, fearing his half-brother would see him as a threat to his regime and have him eliminated. And Malaysian police reported this week the two women arrested in connection with the killing may have been trained in assassination. </s> North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s half-brother was assassinated Monday in Malaysia, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported early Tuesday, citing a government source.

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Kim Jong Nam was attacked by two unidentified women who stabbed him with “poisoned needles” at a Malaysian airport before fleeing, according to cable TV broadcaster TV Chosun.

Malaysian police reportedly suspect Jong Nam was targeted by North Korea.

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The 45-year-old Jong Nam was the oldest son of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and held no official title.

In the late 1990s he was thought to be the heir apparent to Kim Jong Il to lead North Korea. However, his chances to succeed his father took a blow when Jong Nam tried entering Tokyo Disneyland using a fake passport in May 2001.

Sometimes a critic of his brother’s rule, Jong Nam had previously suspected he was a target for assassination by North Korean agents.

He had two wives, a mistress and three children, according to a 2010 South Korean newspaper profile in The Chosun Ilbo.

The man who died was waiting for a flight to Macau on Monday when he fell ill, district police chief Abdul Aziz Ali told The Associated Press.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Malaysia on Wednesday charged two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, with murdering the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader in a bizarre airport assassination using a super-toxic nerve agent that killed in minutes.

Siti Aishah, a 25-year-old mother of one from Jakarta, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from rural northern Vietnam, could be hanged if they are convicted of the killing of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13.

Police brought the two women to court handcuffed. As they left, they were made to wear bullet-proof vests, reflecting Malaysian authorities’ fears that others involved in the killing could want the women silenced.

No plea was recorded after the charges were read out.

But Aishah and Huong have told diplomats who visited them in custody that they were unwitting pawns in an assassination that U.S. officials and South Korean intelligence have said was organized by North Korean agents.

Huong’s lawyer told reporters outside the court that his client had told him she was innocent.

“She denied. She denied. She said ‘I’m innocent’,” Selvam Shanmugam said.

“Of course, she’s definitely distressed because she is facing death penalty,” he added.

The next court date will be April 13, when prosecutors will apply for the accused to be tried jointly.

Kim Jong-nam, who had criticized the regime of his family and his half-brother Kim Jong-un, died after the two women allegedly smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, across his face.

He had been preparing to catch a flight to Macau, the Chinese territory where he had been living under Beijing’s protection since going into exile several years ago.

According to the charges, the women and four unnamed people, who are still at large, were in the airport departure lounge with the intention of murdering the North Korean citizen.

One North Korean man, identified by police as Ri Jong Chol, is still in police custody and has not been charged. Police have identified seven other North Koreans wanted in connection with the case, including an embassy official in Kuala Lumpur.

Amid a bitter diplomatic row, members of Malaysia’s cabinet met with a high-level North Korean delegation that arrived on Tuesday to press for the release of the citizen in custody, and for the body to be handed over.

Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam told reporters he was not at that meeting, but a decision would eventually be made on what to do with the body as no next of kin had come forward for formal identification.

North Korea maintains the victim is a North Korean citizen, but denies he is the half brother of its leader, Kim Jong-un.

South Korea’s foreign minister told a U.N. sponsored disarmament conference in Geneva on Tuesday that its unpredictable, nuclear-armed neighbor had thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons, including VX.

Yun Byung-se called for “collective measures” against North Korea, including possible suspension of its U.N. membership.

North Korea’s envoy to the conference, Ju Yong Choi, rejected the suggestion as “despicable” and said the country has never produced or stockpiled chemical weapons.

The country’s official KCNA news agency later said the claim that VX was used to kill its citizen was “absurd” and lacked scientific basis, calling it an assertion made by the United States and South Korea to tarnish the North’s image.

Security camera footage, which has been broadcast in the media, showed two women assaulting Kim Jong-nam at the airport around 20 minutes before he died.

Both women have told diplomats from their countries that they had believed they were carrying out a prank for a reality television show. Indonesian diplomats said Aishah told them she was paid around $90 by whoever tricked her into taking part.

Malaysian police have said the suspects had washed their hands after the assault, and were aware that the liquid smeared on their victim’s face was toxic.

Aishah’s lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, was granted a gag order to restrain police and potential witnesses from making public statements that may incriminate his client.

Police detained Huong 48 hours after the murder in the same airport terminal where Kim Jong-nam was killed. They identified her as the dark-haired woman wearing a white shirt emblazoned with the acronym “LOL”, whose image was caught by a security camera while waiting for a taxi after the attack.

Appearing in court on Wednesday, Huong wore a yellow shirt and blue jeans, and her wavy hair was dyed blonde.

Aishah was caught a day after Huong. Police said she suffered a bout of vomiting while in custody that they said was due to side-effects from exposure to VX. Indonesian diplomats who visited her subsequently said she was in good health.

In court, Aishah indicated that she understood the charges against her. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her solemn face framed by long, dark hair, Aishah nodded to Indonesian embassy officials as she left the courtroom.

“We hope that she gets a fair trial, afforded all her legal rights and not tried by the public,” Indonesia’s foreign ministry spokesman, Armanatha Nasir, told Reuters in Jakarta. </s> K , the half-brother of North Korea's Supreme Leader, may be dead in Malaysia, the result of an apparent assassination carried out under shadowy circumstances.

Reuters reported Tuesday that an was rushed to Putrajaya Hospital after being poisoned at the Kuala Lumpur airport by two women who, according to a South Korean news channel, are believed to be operatives working for the country's neighbor. They are still on the loose. Meanwhile, a source in South Korea's government confirmed to the news outlet that the dead man was indeed Kim Jong Nam.

Malaysian police said that the deceased was in possession of a passport with the name Kim Chol, according to Reuters. Incidentally, Kim Jong Nam's younger brother — the second of Kim Jong Il's three sons — was named Kim Jong Chul. A noted Eric Clapton fan, Kim Jong Chul was reportedly passed over for the succession because his father thought his second son was too girlish.

As the oldest of Kim Jong Il's three sons, Kim Jong Nam was over the dynasty upon the death of their father, Kim Jong Il. That is, until Kim Jong Nam's fortunes shifted, ostensibly over an illicit, trip to Disneyland.

In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was detained in Tokyo's Narita International Airport, where he was reportedly using a forged Dominican Republic passport to visit Japan's theme park — or so he told authorities before they deported him to China. Up until about 2012, Kim Jong Nam was said to be , a Chinese administrative region the Week once compared to Las Vegas.

Kim Jong Nam was not necessarily a proponent of North Korea's dynastic succession.

"Personally, I am opposed to the hereditary transfer to a third generation of the family," he said.

In Malaysia, authorities are waiting on autopsy results before they can confirm that the 40-something-year-old man poisoned Monday was in fact the supposed former heir to North Korea's dynasty. </s> Malaysia summoned the North Korean ambassador today for a dressing-down over Pyongyang’s attack on its investigation into the assassination of leader Kim Jong-Nam’s brother, deepening a diplomatic row. Five North Koreans are in the frame for last week’s airport killing, drawing a furious response from Pyongyang which has accused Kuala Lumpur of conspiring with “hostile forces” to damage its reputation. Malaysia recalled its envoy to Pyongyang and also summoned the North Korean ambassador to Kuala Lumpur, who was told his accusation was “baseless”, the foreign ministry said in a statement. “The ministry emphasised that as the death occurred on Malaysian soil under mysterious circumstances, it is the responsibility of the Malaysian government to conduct an investigation to identify the cause of death,” it said.

The row erupted when Malaysian police rejected North Korean diplomats’ demands to hand over the body of Kim Jong-Nam after he was apparently poisoned at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport.

Ambassador Kang Chol last week told reporters outside the morgue where Jong-Nam’s body is being held that Malaysia was being pressured by South Korea in a bid to defame its northern neighbour.

Seoul has pointed the finger of blame for the attack at the North, citing a “standing order” from Kim Jong-Un to kill his elder sibling and a failed assassination bid in 2012 after he criticised the regime.

“The Malaysian government takes very seriously any unfounded attempt to tarnish its reputation,” the statement said, after the ambassador’s meeting with Deputy Secretary General for Bilateral Affairs Raja Nushirwan Zainal Abidin.

The Malaysian ambassador in Pyongyang has also been recalled to Kuala Lumpur for consultations, the statement said.

Police said yesterday they believed five North Koreans were involved in the killing, with four having fled the country on the day of the murder.

Officers have already arrested one North Korean living in Kuala Lumpur, an Indonesian woman and her Malaysian boyfriend, as well as a Vietnamese woman.

Three more North Koreans were wanted for questioning, police said. The drama erupted last week as Jong-Nam prepared to board a plane to Macau, where he has been living in recent years. Malaysian police say the 45-year-old was jumped by two women who squirted liquid in his face.

Jong-Nam suffered a seizure and died before arriving at hospital.

He was once thought to be the natural successor to his father, the then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

But after Jong-Il’s death in 2011 the succession went instead to his younger half-brother Kim Jong-Un. </s> The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has been assassinated in Malaysia, South Korean media reported Tuesday, with one TV station saying he was attacked at the main airport with poisoned needles.

Officials in Seoul could not be reached for comment on the reported death of Kim Jong-Nam. Malaysian police said an unidentified Korean had been taken sick at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and since died.

If confirmed, Kim’s case would be the highest-profile death under the Kim Jong-Un regime since the execution of the leader’s uncle Jang Song-Thaek in December 2013.

Kim Jong-Un has been trying to strengthen his grip on power in the face of growing international pressure over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

South Korea’s national news agency Yonhap quoted a Seoul government source as saying Kim Jong-Nam was killed on Monday. The source gave no further details.

The 45-year-old was poisoned by two unidentified female agents using poisoned needles at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, according to South Korean broadcaster TV Chosun.

The report, citing what it called multiple government sources, said the two women hailed a cab and fled immediately afterwards.

In Malaysia, the police chief in charge of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Assistant Commissioner Abdul Aziz Ali, told AFP a Korean in his forties was found sick at the airport on Monday.

Airport authorities rushed him to the hospital and he died on the way, the police chief said.

“We do not have any other details of this Korean man. We do not know his identity,” Abdul said.

Kim Jong-Nam was once considered heir apparent but fell out of favour with his father Kim Jong-Il following an embarrassing botched attempt in 2001 to enter Japan on a forged passport and visit Disneyland.

He has since lived in virtual exile, mainly in the Chinese territory of Macau.

Jong-Nam’s half-brother Jong-Un took over as North Korean leader when their father died in December 2011.

Jong-Nam, known as an advocate of reform in the North, once told a Japanese newspaper that he opposed his country’s dynastic power transfers.

He was reportedly close to his uncle Jang Song-Thaek, once the North’s unofficial number two and political mentor of the current leader.

Jong-Nam has been targeted in the past. In October 2012 South Korean prosecutors said a North Korean detained as a spy had admitted involvement in a plot to stage a hit-and-run car accident in China in 2010 targeting Kim Jong-Nam.

In 2014 Jong-Nam was reported to be in Indonesia – sighted at an Italian restaurant run by a Japanese businessman in Jakarta – and was said to be shuttling back and forth between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and France.

In 2012 a Moscow newspaper reported that Jong-Nam was having financial problems after being cut off by the Stalinist state for doubting its succession policy.

The Argumenty i Fakty weekly said he was kicked out of a luxury hotel in Macau over a $15,000 debt.

Last year South Korea warned of possible North Korean assassination attempts on its territory. It noted previous attempts to assassinate Hwang Jang-Yop, the North’s chief ideologue and former tutor to Kim Jong-Il, who defected to the South in 1997 and died of natural causes in 2010.

Jong-Nam was born from his father’s extra-marital relationship with Sung Hae-rim, a South Korean-born actress who died in Moscow. – AFP </s> Malaysia on Wednesday charged two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - with murdering the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader in an assassination using a super-toxic nerve agent that killed in minutes.

Siti Aishah, a 25-year-old mother of one from Jakarta, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from rural northern Vietnam, could be hanged if they are convicted for the killing of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13th.

Police brought the two women to court handcuffed. As they left, they were made to wear bullet-proof vests, reflecting Malaysian authorities’ fears that others involved in the killing could want the women silenced.

No plea was recorded after the charges were read out against them.

But, Aishah and Huong have told diplomats who visited them in custody that they were unwitting pawns in an assassination that US officials and South Korean intelligence have said was organised by North Korean agents.

Huong’s lawyer told reporters outside the court that his client had told him she was innocent.

“She denied. She denied. She said ‘I’m innocent’,” Selvam Shanmugam said.

“Of course, she’s definitely distressed because she is facing death penalty,” he added.

The next court date will be on April 13th, when prosecutors will apply for the accused to be tried jointly.

Kim Jong-nam, who had criticised the regime of his family and his half-brother Kim Jong-un, died after the two women allegedly smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, across his face.

He had been preparing to catch a flight to Macau, the Chinese territory where he had been living under Beijing’s protection since going into exile several years ago.

According to the charges the women and four unnamed people, who are still at large, were in the airport departure, with the intention to murder the North Korean citizen.

One North Korean man, identified by police as Ri Jong Chol, is still in police custody and has not been charged yet. Police have identified seven other North Koreans wanted in connection with the case, including an embassy official in Kuala Lumpur.

Amid a bitter diplomatic row, members of Malaysia’s cabinet met with a high level North Korean delegation that arrived on Tuesday to press for the release of the citizen in custody, and for the body to be handed over.

Health minister Subramaniam Sathasivam told reporters he was not at that meeting, but a decision would eventually be made on what to do with the body as no next of kin had come forward for formal identification.

North Korea maintains the victim is a North Korean citizen, but denies he is the half brother of its leader Kim Jong-un.

South Korea’s foreign minister told a UN sponsored disarmament conference in Geneva on Tuesday that its unpredictable, nuclear-armed neighbour has thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons, including VX.

Yun Byung-se called for “collective measures” against North Korea, including possible suspension of its UN membership.

Security camera footage, which has been broadcast in the media, showed two women assaulting Kim Jong-nam at the airport around 20 minutes before he died.

Both women have told diplomats from their countries that they had believed they were carrying out a prank for a reality television show. Indonesian diplomats said Aishah told them she was paid around $90 by whoever tricked her into taking part.

Malaysian police have said the suspects had washed their hands after the assault, and were aware that the liquid smeared on their victim’s face was toxic.

Aishah’s lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng was granted a gag order to restrain police and potential witnesses from making public statements that may incriminate his client.

Appearing in court on Wednesday, Ms Huong wore a yellow shirt and blue jeans, and her wavy hair was dyed blonde.

Aishah was caught a day after Huong. Police said she suffered a bout of vomiting while in custody that they said was due to side-effects from exposure to the VX. Indonesian diplomats who visited her subsequently said she was in good health.

In court, Aishah indicated that she understood the charges against her. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her solemn face framed by long, dark hair, Aishah nodded to Indonesian embassy officials as she left the courtroom.
Kim Jong-nam, eldest son of Kim Jong-il, is assassinated in Malaysia after two unidentified women reportedly poisoned him at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.