‘I thought it was baby oil’
Murder suspect Siti was told it was all just a prank
CYBERJAYA: Siti Aisyah, the Indonesian suspect in the Kim Jong-nam assassination case, said she was paid RM400 to take part in what she thought was a prank for a reality TV show.
And she was also under the impression that the liquid given to her was baby oil.
That was her side of the story, which she related to Indonesia’s Deputy Ambassador to Malaysia Andreano Erwin, who visited her at the police headquarters here yesterday.
Siti Aisyah, 25, also told him during their 30-minute meeting that two men, whom she knew as James and Chan, dealt with her.
To her, they looked like “Korean or Japanese”.
Both men instructed her to carry out the act and that she was merely doing what she was told to do.
“She said she also didn’t know the other female suspect, Doan Thi Huong,” Andreano told reporters at a press conference.
He said Siti Aisyah appeared physically well with no signs of being affected by the poison that killed Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
“But we don’t know about her mental state. We’ll need to conduct more checks,” Andreano said.
Siti Aisyah also asked embassy officials to tell her family to stay calm and to take care of their health.
“We asked her if she wants to meet her family but she said she’d rather not because she didn’t want her family to see her in this condition,” Andreano said.
On Friday, Malaysian police said VX nerve agent, a deadly chemical banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, was the poison that was used to kill Jong-nam at KLIA2 on Feb 13.
The United States listed it as a weapon of mass destruction.
Siti Aisyah was nabbed three days after the assassination.
As for Thi Huong, 28, who had become known as the woman with the LOL T-shirt, she was detained just a day after the crime.
Both women are believed to have wiped Jong-nam’s face with the chemical.
Yesterday, Bernama also reported that Andreano was asked whether the woman he met yesterday was indeed the same person as stated in the passport.
He said the embassy brought equipment to obtain her fingerprint, which would be sent via satellite to Indonesia for verification.
“Hopefully, we will obtain the results in a day on whether she is the same person,” he said.
He said the embassy would wait for the Malaysian police’s next course of action on whether Siti Aisyah would be charged or released.
Her remand expires on March 1.