North Korean leader’s half-brother assassinated
Multiple South Korean media reports, citing unidentified sources, said Kim Jong Nam was killed at the airport by two women believed to be North Korean agents. They fled in a taxi and were being sought by Malaysian police, the reports said.
A Malaysian police statement confirmed the death of a 46-year-old North Korean man whom it identified from his travel document as Kim Chol, born in Pyongyang on June 10, 1970. “Investigation is in progress and a post mortem examination request has been made to ascertain the cause of death,” the statement said.
Ken Gause, at the CNA think tank in Washington who has studied North Korea’s leadership for 30 years, said Kim Chol was a name that Kim Jong Nam has traveled under. He is believed to have been born May 10, 1971, although birthdays are always unclear for senior North Koreans, Gause said.
Mark Tokola, vice president of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington and a former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said it would be surprising if Kim Jong Nam was not killed on the orders of his brother, given that North Korean agents have reportedly tried to assassinate Kim Jong Nam in the past.
“It seems probable that the motivation for the murder was a continuing sense of paranoia on the part of Kim Jong Un,” Tokola wrote in a commentary Tuesday. Although there was scant evidence that Kim Jong Nam was plotting against the North Korean leader, he provided an alternative for North Koreans who would want to depose his brother.
In Washington, the State Department said it was aware of reports of Kim Jong Nam’s death but declined to comment, referring questions to Malaysian authorities.
The reported killing came as North Korea celebrated its latest missile launch, which foreign experts were analyzing for evidence of advancement in the country’s missile capabilities.