‘N Korean spies involved in killing of Kim’
SEOUL: South Korea’s intelligence service told lawmakers on Monday that four North Korean government spies were involved in the killing of the estranged half brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.
Lawmakers cited the National Intelligence Service as telling them in a private briefing that four of the North Koreans identified as suspects by Malaysian police investigating the February 13 death of Kim Jong Nam are from the Ministry of State Security, the North’s spy organ.
The NIS was quoted as saying that two other suspects are affiliated with Pyongyang’s foreign ministry, according to Lee Cheol Woo, one of the lawmakers who attended the briefing. Another lawmaker Kim Byeong-ki cited the NIS as saying Kim Jong Un directed a “state-organised terror” to kill his brother.
Lawmakers didn’t say how the NIS got the information and if it elaborated on what specific roles these North Korean suspects performed. The NIS has a mixed record on developments in the secretive North.
Malaysia hasn’t directly accused North Korea of having masterminded the killing but is pursuing several North Korean suspects, including a diplomat at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
Kim Jong Nam died at Kuala Lumpur’s airport in what Malaysian police say was a planned hit by a Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman who separately wiped a liquid onto Kim’s face. Police identified as the substance as the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent.