I thought it was a joke
KUALA LUMPUR
THE miniskirt- wearing suspected killer of the playboy half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un may have been duped into his assassination.
The woman – a tourist travelling with a Vietnamese passport in the name of Doan Thi Huong – claims she was unaware of the deadly plot, believing it was all a prank.
She was identified from CCTV footage at Kuala Lumpur Airport, which showed her wearing a LOL T-shirt following Monday’s audacious murder of Kim Jong-nam, 45.
Initial reports accused her and a female accomplice of being North Korean agents who clamped a cloth doused in a toxic chemical on Jongnam’s face and sprayed him with poison.
South Korea has pointed the finger of blame at the North, citing a “standing order” from Jong-un to kill his sibling and a failed assassination bid in 2012 after Jong-nam criticised the regime.
But, according to reports in Malaysia, Huong has told police she arrived in Kuala Lumpur with a woman and five men for a “holiday” – and was encouraged
by them to take part in the attack thinking it was a joke.
Police arrested her alleged female accomplice Siti Aisyah, a 25-year-old Indonesian mother, on Thursday apparently after she was betrayed by her Malaysian boyfriend. He was also detained.
The women are accused of attacking Jongnam as he arrived at the airport to board a flight to Macau, where he lived in exile after denouncing his half-brother’s regime.
“I thought it was just a harmless joke,” Huong is reported to have said.
A manhunt is continuing for the four male agents suspected of being the “on-location masterminds” behind the brazen execution.
An autopsy has been completed but the results have not been released. However, it emerged that it took just five seconds for Jong- nam to die following the poison attack.