The laughing airport assassin
One of two women suspected of assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother with poison was captured on CCTV in Kuala Lumpar airport after the attack wearing a distinctive top with the letters LOL, an acronym for ‘laugh out loud’
KIM JONG-NAM wrote a letter to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in which he begged for his life to be spared, it emerged yesterday, as Malaysian police said they had arrested a Vietnamese woman in connection with his murder.
Mr Kim, a 46-year-old playboy who had been living in exile in Macau, was sprayed in the face with an unknown liquid at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday. It is believed Kim Jong-un ordered the assassination as he feared being overthrown by his older half-brother.
Mr Kim has always denied having any intention of taking over the North Korean leadership.
According to South Korean intelligence, Mr Kim wrote to Kim Jong-un in 2012 asking his half-brother to spare his life and that of his family.
Lee Byong-ho, the director of the agency, told a meeting of the government’s Intelligence Committee that Kim Jong-nam was murdered with poi- son in Malaysia and he had survived at least one previous attempt on his life, it was reported by Yonhap News.
After that assassination attempt, in 2012, Kim Jong-nam wrote to his broth- er and asked that no further attacks be directed at him or his family.
Mr Lee added that Kim Jong-nam had stated on more than one occasion that he had no ambitions to seize control of North Korea and that he posed no threat to his half-brother.
His assassination was a result of Kim Jong-un’s “delusional disorder”, he added.
Kim Jong-nam’s first wife, Shin Jonghui, currently lives in a northern suburb of Beijing with a son, while a second wife, Lee Hye-Kyong, lives in an apartment complex in Macau with their son, Han-sol, and daughter, Sol-hui.
The Malaysian authorities said they had arrested a woman in her twenties over the killing. There are two female suspects and four male, police sources told The Daily Telegraph.
An unofficial spokesman for Pyongyang based in Japan claimed Kim Jong-nam was not dead and that reports of his assassination were a plot to discredit North Korea and deflect attention from political unrest in South Korea.