Airport killing trial to proceed
The murder trial of two women accused of assassinating the half-brother of North Korea’s leader at an airport can proceed, a Malaysian court ruled on Thursday in a blow to their families.
After hearing the prosecution’s case, the judge said there was sufficient evidence to support a murder charge against Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, accused of murdering Kim Jong Nam with nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Judge Azmi Ariffin said the evidence pointed to a “wellplanned conspiracy” with a group of North Korean suspects who are still at large. “I must therefore call upon [the suspects] to enter their defence,” he ruled in the Shah Alam High Court outside Kuala Lumpur.
The women, set to testify in their own defence, looked shocked. Their families say the pair were tricked into carrying out the Cold War-style killing, and had been hopeful they would be acquitted.
“She knows nothing, she was fooled. The case [against her] was made up,” Aisyah’s father, Asria, said from the family’s village on Java island.
Her mother Benah added: “This is unfair. I wanted her to be released but if the court refuses what can I do? I can only pray for the final verdict.”
The women are accused of killing Kim Jong Nam – once seen as an heir to the North Korean leadership and a rival to current leader Kim Jong Un – by smearing toxic VX on his face in February last year as he waited to board a flight to Macau.
The pair, who could face death by hanging if found guilty, claim they fell victim to an elaborate plot hatched by North Korean agents and believed they were taking part in a prank for a reality TV show.
But prosecutors, who likened the murder to the goings-on in a “James Bond” movie, argued the pair were well-trained assassins who knew exactly what they were doing. During months of hearings, the court has been told that four North Koreans – who are formally accused alongside the women – recruited the pair and were the masterminds, providing them with the poison on the day before fleeing the country.
CCTV footage seen in court showed the women rushing to separate bathrooms in the airport after the murder before leaving in taxis. The judge said the footage “showed they had the knowledge that the liquid on their hands was toxic”.
The defence argues the women are scapegoats, with the authorities unable to catch the real killers and therefore desperate for any conviction.
Jong Nam had been living in exile for a decade since falling out of favour with the North’s ruling family.