Woman in ‘Laugh Out Loud’ T-shirt is arrested in hunt for North Korea assassin
POLICE investigating the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother arrested a female suspect yesterday.
Kim Jong-nam, 46, is thought to have been poisoned as he waited to board a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday.
Malaysian officers arrested a slim, dark-haired suspect who was captured on airport CCTV wearing a “laugh out loud” T-shirt and short skirt.
They believe she is one of two female agents who reportedly poisoned the estranged half-brother of the premier.
Police chief Tan Abu Bakar said the woman was detained when she returned to the same terminal to catch a flight to Vietnam.
He added that she was travelling under the name Doan Thi Huong on a Vietnamese passport.
Alone
He said: “Suspect was positively identified from the CCTV footage at the airport and was alone at the time of the arrest.
“She was in possession of a Socialist Republic of Vietnam travel document.”
Deputy police inspector General Rashid Ibrahim added: “It is her. We recognised her from the footage and picked her up.”
Police in the Malaysian capital are looking for several other foreign nationals in connection with the death.
The arrest came as Malaysian officials became locked in a row with North Korea about whether an autopsy should be carried out on the body.
North Korean officials reportedly spent hours trying to talk the authorities out of carrying out an autopsy on the married father of one.
Medics at Hospital Kuala Lumpur were preparing to carry out an autopsy amid tight security, following apparent sightings of official North Korean cars.
Jong-un, 33, and Jong-nam, 46, shared the same father, Kim Jong-il, but had different mothers. Jong-nam had lived outside North Korea for the past 14 years after being banished after a fall-out with Jong-il.
He had been replaced as heir by his younger brother Jong-un and was said to be living in fear after dismissing the Pyongyang regime as “a joke”.
Investigators say the airport drama unfolded as he was due to fly out of Kuala Lumpur to the Chinese territory of Macau under a false name.
He was reportedly approached by two women who either splashed a poisonous liquid in his face or held a cloth to his mouth.
The victim went to a help desk, complaining of dizziness, and was Arrested... the suspect, wearing a ‘Laugh Out Loud’ top, was captured on airport CCTV then taken to an airport clinic where his condition grew worse. He died after arriving at hospital.
Yesterday, South Korea’s secret service told its parliament that North Korea had been plotting to kill the flamboyant exile since at least 2012.
An official said: “After Kim Jong-un came to power, he gave a standing order that Kim Jong-nam had to be taken care of, at all costs.”
South Korean politician Kim Byung-kee, who had been briefed by the intelligence agency, said: “The cause of death is strongly suspected to be a poisoning attack.”
Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on the North Korean leadership at Dongguk University, Seoul, said: “Kim Jong-un may have been worried about more and more North Korean elites turning against him.”
Jong-nam, who was Jong-il’s son from an affair with actress Song Hye-rim, fell out of favour after a bizarre attempt to visit Tokyo’s Disneyland on a forged passport.
Since the 2001 embarrassment, he had spent his time between Malaysia, Macau, Singapore, Indonesia and France.
The father of a 17-year-old son, he had suspected his life could be in danger and, five years ago, pleaded with his younger brother to spare him.