N. Korea mocks nerve-agent claim
It doubts use in killing of Kim brother because suspects lived
TOKYO — North Korea has denied the findings of a Malaysian autopsy that suggest the deadly VX nerve agent was used to kill leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother.
North Korea’s state-run news agency on Wednesday said the claim that small amounts of the toxic nerve agent were detected in the body was an “absurdity” lacking “scientific accuracy and logical coherence.”
The Korean Central News Agency report came as two women accused of carrying out the attack on Kim Jong Nam in a crowded airport lobby Feb. 13 were charged with murder.
North Korea has strongly denied any involvement in the killing, though Malaysian police are looking for three North Koreans, including the second secretary at the North Korean Embassy, in relation to the death. Police have said four other North Koreans who left the country on the same day as the killing provided the VX liquid and put it on the women’s hands before they wiped it on Kim’s face.
In its denial Wednesday, Korean Central News Agency said it is the “height of absurdity” to claim that the two women could have used such a deadly toxin without also killing or sickening themselves and anyone around them.
The news agency also said that if VX is suspected, international conventions on chemical weapons call for the substance to be tested at facilities specializing in such substances. It likened claims by South Korea and the U.S. of North Korean involvement in the killing to claims of “Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction” spread by the U.S. in the 1990s.
Later, Malaysia’s state news agency announced that Malaysia had scrapped visa-free entry for North Koreans.
Malaysian Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said over the weekend that the dose of VX given to Kim was so high that it caused serious paralysis and killed him within 20 minutes.
Malaysian police said the attackers knew what they were doing and had been trained to go immediately to the bathroom and clean their hands.
North Korea has avoided identifying the victim as anyone other than “Kim Chol,” the name on the passport he was carrying.
Kim had lived in virtual exile from the North for years. While Malaysia’s deputy prime minister has said the victim was Kim, other Malaysian officials have been more cautious.
In the written version of the charges, the victim is identified as Kim Chol. Medical officials were hoping to get DNA samples to positively confirm the victim’s identity.
“We don’t have the specimen,” the health minister said at a news conference Wednesday. “We have a body of one person who has got a North Korean passport with the name Kim Chol.”
The women suspects — one from Vietnam and the other from Indonesia — appeared in court Wednesday under the protection of masked special forces officers carrying machine guns. Both have said they believed that they were participating in a prank for a TV show and did not know they were involved in a killing.
“I understand but I am not guilty,” Vietnamese suspect Doan Thi Huong told the court in English after the murder charge was read. The other suspect, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, nodded as her translator told her she was accused of the murder.
The women did not enter pleas because the magistrate court where they appeared has no jurisdiction over a murder case. Lead prosecutor Iskander Ahmad told the court that he will ask for the case to be transferred to a higher court and for the women to be tried together.
Malaysia’s attorney general, Mohamad Apandi Ali, said today that Ri Jong Chol, 45, a North Korean man who was arrested as a suspect Feb. 17, will be released and deported Friday because of a lack of evidence connecting him to the attack on Kim. Malaysia has not described his purported role in the killing.