Police confirm Kim Chol is Kim Jong-nam, body yet to be claimed
KUALA LUMPUR: InspectorGeneral of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has confirmed that the North Korean citizen murdered at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 ( klia2) on Feb 13 whose passport named him as Kim Chol, is actually Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of the republic’s leader Kim Jong-un.
However, he declined to explain how the identity verification on the body was done so as to protect the safety of witnesses.
“I will not give further explanation on how it (the verification) was done. For the sake of the witnesses, I will not give any explanation.
“So, now we have done our investigation on the deceased,” he told reporters after closing a ceremony to mark the modern police station pilot project at the Taman Tun Dr Ismail Police Station here yesterday.
Khalid said police would hand over Jong-nam’s body to the Health Ministry for the next course of action as no next- of-kin has come to claim his body so far.
“We will hand over the body to the Health Ministry at anytime soon as no one has come to claim it,” he said. Asked whether Jong-nam’s body would be handed over to the North Korean government, Khalid said according to Malaysian laws, only the deceased’s next- of-kin could claim the body at any hospital in the country.
“Our laws only allow us (the hospitals) to hand over the body to the next- of kin... to family members.
“Since there no family members (of Jong-nam) have come to claim the body, we have to hand it over to the Health Ministry for their further action,” he said.