Killers used VX nerve agent on North Korean, police say

port in Kuala Lumpur, has unleashed a diplomatic crisis. With each new twist in the case, international speculation grows that Pyongyang dispatched a hit squad to Malaysia to kill the exiled older sibling of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea has denounced Malaysia’s investigation as full of “holes and contradictions” and accused the authorities here of being in cahoots with Pyongyang’s enemies.

According to Malaysian investigators, two women — one of them Indonesian, the other Vietnamese — coated their hands with chemicals and wiped them on Kim’s face on Feb. 13 as he waited for a flight home to Macau, where he lived with his family.

He sought help from airport staff, but he fell into convulsions and died on the way to the hospital within two hours of the attack, police said.

The case has perplexed toxicologists, who question how the two women could have walked away unscathed after handling a powerful poison, even if — as Malaysian police say — the women were instructed to wash their hands right after the attack.

Dr. Bruce Goldberger, a toxicolo- gist who heads the forensic medicine division at the University of Florida, said even a tiny amount of this nerve agent — equal to a few grains of salt — is capable of killing. It can be administered through the skin, and there is an antidote that can be administered by injection.

Malaysia has three people in custody, including the two attack suspects. Authorities are also seeking several other people, including the second secretary of North Korea’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur and an employee of North Korea’s state-owned airline, Air Koryo.