‘My family kept me going’

SINDANGSARI (Indonesia): Shock and delight rippled through here yesterday as residents got word that a woman accused of assassinating the North Korean leader’s half-brother had been freed.

Reeling from the news, Siti Aisyah’s aunt geared up for a party to welcome back her niece, 1½ years after she went on trial in Malaysia with the death penalty hanging over her head.

“Thank God. I want to say a thousand ‘thank yous’ if it’s really true that she has been freed,” said Darmi.

“They (the Malaysian and Indonesian governments) should bring her here because she’s not guilty. We’ve heard the news and we’re so happy.

“Thanks to everyone who took care of my niece.”

Siti Aisyah’s parents were in Jakarta yesterday to await their daughter’s return, after a flurry of diplomatic efforts between the two countries.

In Kuala Lumpur, Siti Aisyah smiled as she was ushered through journalists and into a car outside the court, where she had been on trial alongside a Vietnamese woman for the murder of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 in February 2017.

The two had always denied their role in the murder, saying they were tricked by North Korean spies into carrying out the assassination using the VX nerve agent and believed it was a prank for a reality television show.

The judge agreed to a request at yesterday’s hearing to withdraw the murder charge and release Siti Aisyah, although it did not amount to a full acquittal.

She struggled to imagine that she was going home.

“I had surrendered myself to God,” she told Indonesia’s Kompas TV.

“It was the support of my family — my mother, my father — and the embassy, that kept me going. Now I want to see them.”

Asked if she would ever return to Malaysia, she said: “Who knows. But I don’t want to be here right now. I want to stay in Indonesia.”