Chemical weapon used to assassinate Kim killed him within 20 minutes
THE dose of nerve agent given to North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un’s half-brother was so high it killed him within 20 minutes and caused “very serious paralysis,” Malaysia’s health minister has said.
Kim Jong Nam died on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur’s airport in what Malaysian police say was a well-planned hit by two women who wiped a liquid on his face.
Police revealed on Friday the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used to kill Mr Kim, raising the stakes in the case.
Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said the dose was so high Mr Kim showed symptoms within minutes. Mr Kim fainted at the airport clinic and died in an ambulance en route to hospital, he said.
“VX only requires 10 milligrams to be absorbed into the system to be lethal, so I presume the amount of dose that went in is more than that,” he said.
“The doses were so high and it did it so fast and all over the body, so it would have affected his heart, it would have affected his lungs, it would have affected everything.”
Asked how long it took Mr Kim to die after he was attacked, Mr Subramaniam said: “I would think it was about, from the time of onset, from the time of application, 15-20 minutes.”
Malaysia has not directly accused the North Korean government of being behind the attack, but officials have said four North Korean men provided two women with poison to carry it out.
The four men fled Malaysia on the day of the killing, while the women, one from Indonesia and the other Vietnamese, were arrested.
Experts say the nerve agent used to kill Mr Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory and is banned under an international treaty. North Korea has never signed the treaty.
Early yesterday, more than a dozen officers in protective gear swept the budget terminal where Mr Kim was attacked and said they found no traces of VX.
Police also said a condominium outside Kuala Lumpur that was raided by police last week had been rented by the four North Korean suspects who left the country.
North Korea has denied any role in the attack.