Malaysia says airport safe, no trace of toxin
KUALA LUMPUR (AP) — Malaysia’s health minister said yesterday autopsy results suggested a nerve agent caused “very serious paralysis” that killed the exiled half-brother of North Korea’s leader, as police completed a sweep of the budget terminal where he was poisoned and declared it safe of any toxin.
The investigation has unleashed a serious diplomatic fight between Malaysia and North Korea, a prime suspect in the Feb. 13 killing of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur’s airport.
Friday’s revelation by Malaysian police that the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used to kill Kim raised the stakes significantly in a case that has broad geopolitical implications.
The killing of Kim took place amid crowds of travelers at Kuala Lumpur’s airport. Tens of thousands of passengers have passed through the airport since the apparent assassination was carried out.
Late Saturday, however, police said they would begin a sweep of the budget terminal where Kim was attacked to check for traces of VX.
Abdul Samah Mat, the police official leading the investigations, said a two-hour sweep by more than a dozen officers in protective gear detected no hazardous material.
On Saturday, representatives from the Indonesian and Vietnamese embassies in Malaysia met with the two women.
Indonesia’s deputy ambassador Andriano Erwin told reporters that Aisyah said she had been paid the equivalent of $90 for what she believed was a harmless prank.
Aisyah, 25, said she had been introduced to people who looked like Japanese or Koreans who asked her to play a prank for a reality show, according to Erwin. Asked if she knew what was on her hands at the time of the attack, Erwin said: “She didn’t tell us about that. She only said that it’s a kind of oil, baby oil, something like that.”
An odorless chemical with the consistency of motor oil, VX is an extremely powerful poison, with an amount no larger than a few grains of salt enough to kill.
The Vietnamese woman Doan Thi Huong also thought she was taking part in a prank, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.
In grainy surveillance footage, the women appear to smear something onto Kim’s face before walking away in separate directions.