N. Korea accuses CIA of plot to assassinate Kim

PYONGYANG. — North Korea yesterday accused the CIA and Seoul’s intelligence services of conspiring to assassinate the isolated country’s leader Kim Jong-Un with a biochemical weapon, amid heightened tensions in the region.

In a statement the powerful ministry of state security said it had foiled a “vicious plot” by a “hideous terrorists’ group” to attack the North’s “supreme leadership”.

The accusations come with the US and North trading threats over the latter’s nuclear and missile programmes, and as Washington considers whether to re-designate Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism.

That follows the killing of Kim’s estranged half-brother Kim Jong-Nam by two women using the banned nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Both Malaysia and South Korea have blamed the North for the assassination, which retorts that the accusations are an attempt to smear it.

The security ministry statement, carried on the North’s official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), said the CIA and the South’s intelligence had suborned, bribed and blackmailed a North Korean citizen named only as Kim to carry out the attack.

Possible locations included the mausoleum where Kim Jong-Un’s father and grandfather — the North’s founder — lie in state, or a military parade. Such an operation would be extremely difficult to prepare and carry out successfully. The North’s leader is surrounded by tight security at all times, and Pyongyang maintains a gigantic surveillance system over its own population that is ingrained at every level of society, where open dissent is unknown.

The CIA told its agent Kim it had access to radioactive and “nano poisonous” substances whose lethal results would appear only after six to 12 months, the statement said.

Kim — described as “human scum” — received payments totalling at least $740,000 and was given satellite transceivers and other materials and equipment, it said. — AFP.