NK victim’s body returns; Malaysia forced to swap

Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the reported murder of the estranged half-brother of their country’s leader returned home on Friday along with the body of victim Kim Jong-nam after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with Pyongyang.

Malaysian police investigating what US and South Korean officials say was an assassination carried out by North Korean agents took statements from the three before they were allowed to leave the country.

“We have obtained whatever we want from them ... They have assisted us and they have been allowed to leave,” police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, saying there were no grounds to hold the men.

Kim Jong-nam, the elder half-brother of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, was killed at Kuala Lumpur’s airport on February 13 in a bizarre assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal the UN has listed it as a weapon of mass destruction.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told a daily news briefing that the remains of a North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia were returned to the North via Beijing along with “relevant” North Korean citizens.

Malaysian authorities released Kim’s body on Thursday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.

Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three given safe passage to leave.

Malaysian prosecutors have charged two women – an Indonesian and a Vietnamese – with killing Kim Jong-nam, but South Korean and US officials had regarded them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.