Pyongyang denying involvement in death of Kim’s half-brother

North Korea denied responsibility Thursday for Kim Jong Nam’s death, accusing Malaysian authorities of fabricating evidence of Pyongyang’s involvement under the influence of the North’s archrival, South Korea.

With the North’s reclusive government on the defensive about the Feb. 13 killing of Kim, the estranged half-brother of the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, at the Kuala Lumpur airport, a statement attributed to the North Korean Jurists Committee said that the greatest share of responsibility for the death “rests with the government of Malaysia” because he died there. And in what could be seen as a threat to Malaysia, the statement noted that North Korea is a “nuclear weapons state.”

But in a case that has been filled with mysteries and odd plot twists, North Korea still would not acknowledge that the man killed was indeed Kim Jong Nam.

And it gave no indication that it would agree to Malaysia’s demands to question a senior staff member at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in the investigation into Kim’s death.

Meanwhile, relatives and acquaintances of the two women Malaysia has accused of carrying out the killing — by applying poison to Kim’s face as North Korean agents looked on — insisted that they must have been duped into doing so, though the Malaysian authorities say otherwise.

“I don’t believe Huong did such a thing,” said Doan Van Thanh, father of Doan Thi Huong, a 28-year-old Vietnamese woman being held in Malaysia. “She was a very timid girl. When she saw a rat or frog, she would scream.”

North Korea has called for the release of Huong, an Indonesian woman and a North Korean man who are being held by Malaysia in connection with the death of Kim.

The statement Thursday from the Jurists Committee accused Malaysian authorities of pursuing a case “full of loopholes and contradictions” that proved that its investigators “intended to frame us.”

It said Malaysia had done so under South Korean influence.