N. Koreans plotted Kim’s death, South reveals

Officials from Foreign Ministry, secret police reportedly took part in airport assassination

SEOUL, South Korea — Officials from North Korea’s secret police and Foreign Ministry were involved in the killing of the estranged half brother of the country’s leader, South Korean intelligence officials told lawmakers Monday.

Ever since Kim Jong Nam, the eldest brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jung Un, was first reported assassinated, the South Korean government has held the North responsible. Monday, the National Intelligence Service in Seoul provided details of what it described as state-sponsored terrorism, saying that four of the eight North Koreans identified as suspects by Malaysian authorities were agents from North Korea’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s secret police.

Speaking Monday in a closeddoor parliamentary hearing, Lee Byung-ho, director of the National Intelligence Service, said that two other suspects worked for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The remaining two were affiliated with Air Koryo, the North’s state-run airline company, and Singwang Economics and Trading General Corp., Lee said, according to two lawmakers at the briefing.

Malaysian authorities have said Kim Jong Nam was killed by an extremely toxic nerve agent known as VX. They said the North Koreans had hired and trained two women, one from Indonesia, the other from Vietnam, to attack Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The women smeared his face with the chemical while he was waiting to check in for a flight to Macau, where he and his family had a home, they said.

The two women are in police custody in Kuala Lumpur.

Lee was quoted by the lawmakers as saying the eight North Koreans, working as two fourmember teams, converged in Kuala Lumpur to carry out the Feb. 13 assassination.

He said that Ri Jae-nam, a state security agent, and Ri Jihyon, a Foreign Ministry official, had brought Doan Thi Huong, 28, a Vietnamese woman, into the assassination plot; Siti Aisyah, 25, an Indonesian woman, was hired by O Jong-gil, a state security agent, and by Hong Song-hac, a Foreign Ministry official.

The four North Koreans who made up the assassination team left Malaysia the same day Kim Jong Nam was killed and are believed to be in their country, Lee said. Malaysian police have confirmed their departure.

Hyon Kwang-song, a diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and three other North Koreans worked as a support team, Lee told the lawmakers, keeping track of Kim Jong Nam’s whereabouts and providing logistical assistance. Hyon worked for the Ministry of State Security, he said.

Hyon and the Air Koryo employee, Kim Uk-il, remain at the embassy in Malaysia. A third member of the team, identified as Ri Jong-chol, has been arrested in Kuala Lumpur. The fourth, identified as Ri Ji-u, is believed to be at large in Malaysia.