Woman arrested over death of North Korean leader’s half brother

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police arrested a woman on Wednesday in connection with the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother.

Police said she was carrying Vietnamese travel documents when arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Kim Jong-nam died after suddenly falling ill at the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, said a senior Malaysian government official.

Kim, who died on the way to a hospital, told medical workers that he had been attacked with a chemical spray, the official said. Police said an autopsy was planned to determine the cause of death.

Since taking power in late 2011, Kim Jong-un has executed or purged a slew of high-level government officials in what the South Korean government has described as a “reign of terror.”

South Korea’s spy service said North Korea had been trying for five years to kill Kim. But the National Intelligence Service did not definitively say that North Korea was behind the killing, just that it was presumed to be a North Korean operation, according to lawmakers who briefed reporters about the closed door meeting with the spy officials.

The NIS cited Kim Jong-un’s alleged “paranoia” about his half brother. Still, the agency has a history of botching intelligence on North Korea and has long sought to portray the country’s leaders as mentally unstable.

Multiple South Korean media reports, citing unidentified sources, said Kim Jong-nam was killed at the airport by two women believed to be North Korean agents.

They fled in a taxi and were being sought by Malaysian police, the reports said.

Police were searching for clues in the closed circuit television footage from the airport, said Selangor police chief Abdul Samah Mat. The airport is in Selangor, near Kuala Lumpur.

According to the government official, Kim Jong-nam was in a shopping concourse and had not yet gone through security for a planned flight to Macau when the incident occurred.