Woman Held Over Death of Kim Jong-nam

  • By Kim Jin-myung

    February 16, 2017 09:31

    Malaysian police on Wednesday arrested a woman suspected of assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother Kim Jong-nam.

    The 29-year-old traveling on a Vietnamese passport under the name Doan Thi Huong was arrested as she was roaming around Kuala Lumpur International Airport and has been positively identified from CCTV footage, police said.

    Kim died on the way to hospital Monday after complaining to airport authorities that he felt dizzy after someone sprayed an unknown liquid on his face from behind.

    A CCTV still shows a woman suspected of assassinating Kim Jong-nam as she waits for a taxi at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday. /Malay Mail

    The suspect, who wore a white sweater with LOL printed on it in large letters, was captured on camera shortly afterwards waiting for a taxi at the exit.

    Malaysian police said the woman has confessed to killing Kim with another Vietnamese woman and four men with North Korean passports. A search for the others is under way.

    Reports said the six suspects all fled the scene and converged at a hotel just a 15-minute drive from the airport. The men apparently watched from a restaurant on the airport's shopping concourse as the two women attacked Kim.

    The woman who was arrested told police that all the other suspects fled and she was the only one left behind at the hotel.

    Malaysian police conducted a post-mortem on Wednesday. Local reports said the toxin used was "stronger than cyanide." The North Korean ambassador to Malaysia and other embassy staff watched the autopsy.

    The South Korean government identified Jong-nam's body on Monday. "He had foam in his mouth, which is a characteristic sign of poisoning," a government official here said.

    The suspect told police that she came to Malaysia to travel with the other woman and was approached by the four men, who told them to play a joke on Kim by spraying a liquid on his face, according to a local newspaper report.

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