Jong-Nam killed by nerve gas

Chemical war agent used in assassination, says report

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s half brother was assassinated with a lethal nerve agent manufactured for chemical warfare and listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

Releasing a preliminary toxicology report on Kim Jong-Nam’s murder at Kuala Lumpur airport, police yesterday revealed the poison used by the assassins was the odourless, tasteless and highly toxic nerve agent VX.

North Korea has a vast chemical weapons stockpile, including VX, of up to 5 000 tons, South Korean experts said yesterday.

Traces of VX were detected on swabs of the dead man’s face and eyes, police said.

Leaked CCTV footage from the February 13 murder shows the portly Kim being approached by two women who appear to push something in his face.

Just a tiny drop of the agent is enough to fatally damage a victim’s central nervous system.

One of the two women suspects who remain in custody fell ill after the brazen killing, with police saying she had been vomiting.

National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said atomic energy experts would sweep the airport’s busy terminal where the Cold War-era attack took place for traces of the toxin.

He said detectives would look for the source of the VX.

A leading regional security expert said it would not have been difficult to smuggle VX into Malaysia in a diplomatic pouch, which are not subject to regular customs checks.

North Korea has previously used the pouches “to smuggle items including contraband and items that would be subjected to scrutiny if regular travel channels were used”, head of the Singaporebased International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research Rohan Gunaratna said.

Abu Bakar has previously said the woman who ambushed Kim from behind clearly knew she was carrying out a poison attack, dismissing claims that she thought she was taking part in a TV prank.

“She was very aware that it was toxic and that she needed to wash her hands.”

Detectives are holding three people – women from Indonesia and Vietnam, and a North Korean man – but want to speak to seven others, four of whom are believed to have fled to Pyongyang.

One man wanted for questioning, who is believed to be still in Malaysia, is senior North Korean embassy official Hyon Kwang Song. — AFP