Suspect in poisoning says she was duped
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
An Indonesian woman — arrested in the killing of the half brother of North Korea’s leader said Saturday that she was paid just $90 to smear what she thought was a harmless liquid on the face of an unsuspecting man.
Siti Aisyah, 25, told Indonesian Embassy officials that she was paid by foreign men for what she thought was a prank for a television show and did not know that anyone would be harmed.
“She only said in general that someone asked her to carry out this activity,” said Andreano Erwin, Indonesia’s deputy ambassador to Malaysia, after meeting with Siti for about 30 minutes. “She said that she met with people who looked Japanese or Korean.”
Kim Jong Nam, 46, the estranged half brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, died not long after two women smeared liquid on his face Feb. 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport as he prepared to check in for a flight.
Malaysian police arrested Siti and another woman, Doan Thi Houng, of Vietnam, within days.
Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Jong Nam was poisoned with VX nerve agent, a chemical banned by international convention that North Korea is known to have.
Siti described the substance she used in the attack as similar to baby oil. An odorless chemical with the consistency of motor oil, VX is an extremely powerful poison.
Malaysia’s health minister, Subramaniam Sathasivam, said early today that the state chemistry department had confirmed the hospital’s autopsy result that suggested the toxin “caused very serious paralysis” and led to Kim’s death “in a very short period of time.”
Experts say the nerve agent was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory. North Korea has spent decades developing a complex chemical weapons program.
Also early today, Abdul Samah Mat, the police official leading the investigations, said a two-hour sweep of the airport by more than a dozen officers in protective gear detected no hazardous material.
Malaysia has named seven North Korean men that it says are connected to the killing, including a diplomat assigned to the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
Police said Saturday that if he did not turn himself in, they would seek a warrant for his arrest, Channel NewsAsia reported.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration, after approving plans Friday for informal talks in New York with a North Korean delegation, reversed course and withdrew permission to grant the North Koreans visas. One of the people who was to be involved in the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “someone obviously looked at the fact that the United States was going to issue visas to representatives of a country that had just violated international law, carried out a murder and intentionally violated the sovereignty of another country, and decided, ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’”