Kim Jong Un’s brother assassinated
Estranged half-sibling of N. Korean dictator killed in chemical spray attack
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA— The halfbrother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was assassinated at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, telling medical workers before he died that he had been attacked with a chemical spray, a Malaysian official said Tuesday.
Kim Jong Nam, 46, was targeted Monday in the shopping concourse at the airport and had not gone through immigration yet for his flight to Macau, said the senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case involves sensitive diplomacy.
He was taken to the airport clinic and then died on the way to the hospital, the official said. Kim Jong Nam was estranged from his younger brother, the North Korean leader. He had been tapped by outsiders to succeed their dictator father, but reportedly fell out of favour when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was believed to have been living recently in Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.
Multiple South Korean media reports, citing unidentified sources, said Kim Jong Nam was killed at the airport by two women. TV Chosun said the women were believed to be North Korean agents. It said they fled in a taxi and were being sought by Malaysian police.
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. The statement said the man had sought initial assistance at a customer service counter at the Kuala Lumpur airport and died en route to a hospital Monday.
“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 travelled under.
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.
For the next several days, North Korea will be marking the birthday of its late-leader Kim Jong Il, the brothers’ father though they have different mothers.
Since taking power in late 2011, Kim Jong Un has executed a slew of highlevel government officials in what the South Korean government has described as a “reign of terror.” The most spectacular was the 2013 execution by anti-aircraft fire of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek.
Mark Tokola, vice-president of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C., and 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 him 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 Tuesday.