RUMOURS: WAS IT THE BROTHER? A LOVER? OR A CRIME GANG?
>> SEOUL: As Malaysian police continue their inquiry into the death of Kim Jongnam there’s plenty of speculation surrounding what seems one of the stranger killings the world has recently seen.
North Korea killed Jong-nam because he planned to create an exile government around defectors, says one rumour. Jong-un was furious after learning about secret Chinese plans to enthrone his estranged sibling if something happens to him, says another.
Or maybe Pyongyang wasn’t involved at all. Perhaps, Jong-nam, known for his carefree lifestyle and gambling habits, angered crime organisations over money problems and that got him killed, say some online arguments.
Some theories are more bizarre. South Korean newspapers have reported on rumours making rounds on the Chinese internet that impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye plotted his death to create a distraction.
South Korea’s spy agency, which has consistently described Jong-un as an irrational and unstable dictator, argues he killed a non-threatening sibling out of “paranoia”. The fuming North Korean ambassador to Kuala Lumpur says the country will reject the autopsy results because Malaysian officials may be “trying to conceal something” and “colluding with hostile forces”.
While imaginations run freely, most South Korean experts think there’s a straightforward explanation behind the alleged assassination of Jong-nam.
Jong-un most likely made another move to remove a potential challenger to his power, the experts say. Jong-nam had been the only member of the Kim clan who regularly talked to foreign journalists and sometimes openly criticised the country’s hereditary power transfer. There’s also a possibility Jong-nam, who stayed in Macau and China, was taken out because he disobeyed orders to return home, according to some experts.
But others find North Korea’s involvement hard to believe. Both of the women arrested for suspected involvement in the killing were non-Koreans and some think their methods were too unorthodox and careless to be considered a North Korean hit job.
“[The attack on Kim] was unbelievably sloppy,” Kim Jongdae, a South Korean lawmaker, said in an interview. He pointed out one of the women reportedly got arrested by returning to the scene a day later with the same clothes.
“Kim Jong-nam led a free-wheeling life, and loved to travel, and mingle with women ... He might have had problems with crime organisations. Or maybe this was a crime based on a love affair gone bad.”
Seo Jae-pyoung, a North Korean defector, thinks it’s unlikely that his death involved crime organisations. While Jong-nam was believed to have profited from helping Chinese firms trade with North Korea when his father Kim Jong-il was alive, he probably stayed away from risky business activities after Jong-un came to power, Mr Seo said.
Some think the attack on Jong-nam was ingenious. It’s possible the women might have not known they were part of an assassination attempt — one of the detained female suspects reportedly told police she was tricked into thinking she was part of a TV comedy show prank. “Whoever did it came up with a careful plan that effectively concealed criminal intent until the job was done,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University. “That person had great understanding of how Western TV media works.”
Getting foreigners to do the job might have been a logical choice for North Korea because it will likely continue denying involvement.