Four male suspects named in Jong-nam murder trial

SHAH ALAM: A police officer yesterday disclosed the identity of four men allegedly involved in the murder in February of Kim Chol or Kim Jong-nam, the brother of North Korea’s leader.

Sepang/KLIA District Police Headquarters investigating officer (IO) ASP Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz said based on investigations, the four men were Mr Chang, James, Mr Y and Hanamori who was also addressed as “grandpa” or “uncle”.

“I obtained the names from the two accused Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong during the investigation. Based on the closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) recordings, the man wearing the black shirt who was walking with Doan is “Mr Y”.

“In this case, Mr Y was the one who wiped liquid on Doan’s hand besides buying the ticket for Siti Aisyah, while Mr Chang who is wearing a black hat met with Siti Aisyah at the Bibik Heritage restaurant and was the one who wiped liquid on her hand.”

To deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin’s question during examination in-chief, he replied that Hanamori was the individual who gave instructions to Mr Y while James was the one who recruited Siti Aisyah.

Wan Azirul Nizam who was the ninth prosecution witness told the court that Kim Chol’s passport was seized to facilitate investigations and a copy of it made before being returned to the North Korean embassy here.

At this juncture, Siti Aisyah’s counsel Gooi Soon Seng objected to the tendering of the copy as an exhibit, submitting that the Evidence Act 1950 provided for a passport copy to be certified before being admitted as evidence by the court.

He said the copy could not be compared with the original document that was sent to the embassy.

Doan’s counsel Salim Basheer interjected that the prosecution could only submit a secondary document if the original had been destroyed or lost.

Wan Shaharuddin countered that the prosecution had submitted the document as secondary evidence under Section 63 of the Evidence Act.

“The passport was under the control of the investigating officer and he himself made the copy. This is not about a missing document,” said DPP.

Justice Datuk Azmi Ariffin said he would make a decision on the issue later; in the meantime, the passport was not tendered as an exhibit.

Department of Chemistry Malaysia, Forensic DNA Unit head Nor Aidora Saedon said there was no DNA on the scarf that Siti Aisyah had worn.

“It had either disintegrated or undergone degradation due to a number of factors, among them, extreme humidity. DNA could be destroyed by high temperature and thirdly, the material had been exposed to chemicals that could cause the DNA to disintegrate,” she said.

The 10th witness also said the DNA analysis found one profile of a woman obtained from blood traces on a sanitary towel, which matched the DNA profile on the sweater labeled ‘Doan’.

She was responding to DPP Mohd Fairuz Johari during examination in-chief in the trial of Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 28, who are jointly charged with four others still at large, of killing Kim Chol, 45, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) departure hall at 9 am on Feb 13.

The prosecution also called its 11th and 12th witnesses, Sepang IPD Criminal Investigation Division photographers corporal Mohd Nordin Mohd Zain, 50, and L/C Ali Imran Rifin, respectively.

The trial has been adjourned to Oct 24. - Bernama