Giving up the dead
Kim’s killing sparks diplomatic dispute
North Korea says it will reject the results of an autopsy on its leader’s estranged half-brother, the victim of an apparent assassination this week at an airport in Malaysia. Pyongyang’s ambassador said Malaysian officials may be ‘‘trying to conceal something’’ and ‘‘colluding with hostile forces’’.
Indonesia’s police chief, meanwhile, said an Indonesian woman arrested for suspected involvement in the death of Kim Jong-nam was duped into thinking she was part of a comedy show prank.
Speaking to reporters gathered outside the morgue in Kuala Lumpur, North Korean Ambassador Kang Chol said Malaysia conducted the autopsy on Kim Jongnam ‘‘unilaterally and excluding our attendance’’.
Kim, who was 45 or 46 and had lived in exile for years, suddenly fell ill at the Kuala Lumpur airport on Tuesday as he waited for a flight home to Macau. Dizzy and in pain, he told medical workers at the airport he had been sprayed with a chemical. He died while being taken to a hospital.
‘‘We will categorically reject the result of the post-mortem,’’ Kang said, adding that the move disregarded ‘‘elementary international laws and consular laws.’’
He said the fact that Malaysia had yet to hand over the body ‘‘strongly suggests that the Malaysian side is trying to conceal something which needs more time and deceive us, and that they are colluding with the hostile forces towards us who are desperate to harm us’’.
North Korea would ‘‘respond strongly to the moves of the hostile forces toward us with their intent to besmirch the image of our republic, by politicising this incident’’, and would sue Malaysia in an international court, he said.
South Korea has accused its enemies in North Korea of dispatching a hit squad to kill Kim at the airport, saying two female assassins poisoned him and then fled in a taxi.
Malaysian police yesterday arrested a fourth person, a North Korean national, over the killing. Two women and a man were earlier arrested.
North Korean diplomats in Malaysia objected to an autopsy and had requested custody of Kim’s body, arguing that he had a North Korean passport.
The autopsy could provide some clarity in a case marked by speculation, tales of intrigue and explosive, unconfirmed reports from duelling nations. Authorities are still awaiting the results.
Malaysia said yesterday it wanted DNA samples from Kim’s family as part of the post-mortem procedure, and that officials were not yet willing to hand the body over to the North Koreans.
Although Kim is believed to have two sons and a daughter with two women living in Beijing and Macau, police in Malaysia say noone has come forward to claim the body or provide DNA samples.
‘‘If there is no claim by next of kin, and upon exhausting all avenues [to obtain DNA], we will finally then hand over the body to the embassy,’’ said Abdul Samah Mat, a senior Malaysian police official.
He would not say how long that process might take.
Indonesian police chief Tito Karnavian, citing information from Malaysian authorities, said one of the arrested women, Siti Aisyah, 25, was paid to be involved in Just For Laughs-style pranks, a reference to a popular hidden camera show.
He said she and another woman performed stunts which involved convincing men to close their eyes and then spraying them with water.
‘‘Such an action was done three or four times and they were given a few dollars for it, and with the last target, Kim Jong Nam, allegedly there were dangerous materials in the sprayer. She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents.’’
Karnavian’s comments came after a male relative of Aisyah said in an Indonesian TV interview that she had been hired to perform in a short comedy movie, and travelled to China as part of this work. Indonesian immigration has said Aisyah travelled to Malaysia and other countries it did not specify.
Investigators are still trying to piece together details of the case. South Korea has not said how it concluded that North Korea was behind the killing.
Malaysian police are questioning Aisyah, another woman who carried a Vietnamese passport, and a man they have said is Aisyah’s boyfriend.
Kim Jong-nam was estranged from his younger half-brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He reportedly fell out of favour with their father, the late Kim Jong-il, in 2001, when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.