Video shows last moments of Kim’s half-brother
A Malaysian airport security video shows the poisoned half-brother of North Korea’s leader apparently unconscious on a wheeled stretcher and being pumped with oxygen by medics as they wait for a lift to take him to an ambulance.
The video, reviewed yesterday, shows what may be the final moments of Kim Jongnam’s life after he fell ill at the international airport in Kuala Lumpur on February 13.
The video emerged as the trial of two women accused of killing Kim by smearing V X nerve agent on his face at the behest of suspected North Korean agents started at Malaysia’s high court.
The video was first broadcast on Sunday by Japan’s Fuji TV. The network also broadcast another security video that it said showed one of the accused women, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, meeting a man believed to be a North Korean agent at an airport cafe shortly before the attack took place.
Kim was the eldest son in the current generation of North Korea’s dynastic rulers but lived in virtual exile. North Korea experts speculate he may have been killed because he was perceived as a threat to the nation’s leader, his younger sibling, Kim Jong-un.
The trial was moved temporarily yesterday to a high-security laboratory to view the nerve agent-tainted clothes the suspects wore the day of the attack.
The move was made after government chemist Raja Subramaniam testified last week that the V X nerve agent he found on the clothing may be active.
His testimony was the first evidence linking V X to Ms Aisyah and her co-defendant, Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam.
Selvi Sandrasegaram, one of the lawyers for Ms Aisyah, said Mr Raja spent more than an hour showing VX-tainted evidence in a laboratory.
Ms Selvi said she was in the room with Ms Huong and two police officers, while the others watched through a glass screen outside. She said Ms Huong wanted to go inside to have a closer look at the evidence, which included her fingernail clippings and a jumper emblazoned with “LOL”, which she wore on the day of Kim’s death.
Mr Raja testified last week that V X was detected on Kim’s face, eyes, clothing and in his blood and urine samples.
Prosecutors said they will present airport security videos this week that show the two women carrying out the attack and indicate that they knew they were handling poison.
The two women pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, which carry a mandatory death sentence if they are convicted.
Defence lawyers said the women were duped into believing they were playing a harmless prank for a television show.
Mr Raja will be cross-examined by defence lawyers today.