His younger brother’s order was fulfilled this week, Seoul says, when Jong-Nam was murdered at an airport in Malaysia, the victim of poison-wielding female assassins sent by North Korea. Her passport bore the name Siti Aishah, and gave her date of birth as February 11, 1992, and place of birth as Serang, Indonesia. The other, identified as an Indonesian national, was recently arrested.
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On Thursday afternoon, police said they had detained a Malaysian man believed to be the boyfriend of the suspect with an Indonesian passport.
The Global Times said the claims, particularly emanating from South Korea, were based on insufficient evidence and were also intended at justifying and speeding up the deployment of a missile defence shield in the South.
The women fled from the airport in a taxi and remained at large Tuesday, TV Chosun reported.
Kim junior showed up at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark what would have been former leader Kim Jong-il’s 75th birthday.
His life in exile ended Monday when he was killed in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. A doctor who participated in the autopsy said, “There were no bruises on his body and his face was red”, according to the JoongAng Ilbo.
North Korea was on the USA terrorism sponsor list for the 1987 mid-air bombing of a Korean Airlines flight that killed all 115 people aboard.
Kim, the first son of late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, was at one time set to take the reins of power in the isolated state; groomed by his father for a third generation succession.
Malaysia would return Kim Jong Nam’s body to North Korea, Zahid said Thursday, but there were still “procedures to be followed”.
Scientists have been speculating about what substance could have killed Kim Jong Nam so quickly and without being ingested. At least two people said they had been told by police and their bosses not to speak to the media or divulge any details of what happened. “He had a big heart, which attracted a lot of people”. It said, “The Kim Jong-un regime will not last long”.
The woman, 28, is understood to have told police she was duped into spraying Kim Jong-nam “with a liquid” by her friends.
Instead, the focus in Pyongyang this week has been on the 75th anniversary celebrations of the current leader’s father, Kim Jong-il.
An unexpected question has arisen about who will claim Kim Jong-nam’s corpse: North Korea or South Korea?
Thousands of North Koreans turned up at the hill to lay a flower, bouquet or basket – all featuring Kimjongilia, the red flower named after the late leader – and bowed, AFP reported.
Malaysian authorities rebuffed North Korean officials’ efforts to stop an autopsy being carried out on Kim, three Malaysian government sources familiar with the stand-off told Reuters.
Bernama had asked Mohamad Fuzi about the possibility of foreign special agents having been involved.
“But this is no normal situation”. They say all the money earned goes to North Korea’s wealthy leadership.
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According to two senior Malaysian government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case involves sensitive diplomacy, the elder Kim told medical workers before he died that he had been attacked with a chemical spray at the airport.
