The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was assassinated in Malaysia, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said on February 14, 2017. / AFP/ TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) — South Korea’s spy agency suspects two female North Korean agents assassinated the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Malaysia, lawmakers in Seoul said on Wednesday, as Malaysian medical authorities sought a cause of death.
United States government sources also told Reuters they believed that Kim Jong-Nam, who according to Malaysian police died on Monday on his way to hospital from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, had been murdered by North Korean assassins.
South Korean intelligence believed Kim Jong-Nam was poisoned, lawmakers said after being briefed by the country’s spy agency.
“The cause of murder seems likely to be of poison, but it is to be checked precisely through autopsy. I hear the autopsy is to be conducted today,” said Kim Byungkee, a lawmaker of the intelligence committee at the parliament after a meeting with the spy agency chief.
“The two females flee by taxi and the Malaysian investigation authorities are tracking them down and it looks like they have not escaped (the country) yet,” said Kim.
The lawmakers said the spy agency told them that the young, unpredictable North Korean leader had issued a “standing order” for his half-brother’s assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.
“The assassination is presumed to be a result of the (North Korean) police authority’s long effort. Henceforth, the timing of assassination seems to hold no special meaning but an execution of a long-held ‘standing order,'” said Kim Byungkee.
According to the spy agency, Kim Jong-Nam had been living with his second wife in the Chinese territory of Macau, under Beijing’s protection, the lawmakers said. One of them said Kim Jong-Nam also had a wife and son in Beijing.
“He has a first wife and one son in Beijing. Also he has one son and one daughter from his second wife in Macau. Kim Han-sol is from the second wife. Those two families have been checked to be under the Chinese authority’s protection,” another lawmaker Lee Cheol-woo said.
Portly and gregarious, Kim Jong-Nam had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the isolated state.
The South Korean lawmakers said Kim Jong-Nam’s death will shock the North’s elite group.
“The ordinary people of North Korea do not know Kim Jong-Nam’s existence but the elites do. So this incident should have come as a shock to the elites,” Lee said.
South Korea is acutely sensitive to any sign of potential instability in North Korea, and is still technically in a state of war with its impoverished and nuclear-armed neighbor.
Malaysian police said the dead man, 46, held a passport under the name Kim Chol. Kim Jong-Nam was known to spend a significant amount of time outside North Korea, traveling in Macau and Hong Kong as well as mainland China, and has been caught in the past using forged travel documents.
Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat said on Tuesday the cause of Kim Jong-Nam’s death was not yet known, and that a post-mortem would be carried out. He had been planning to travel to Macau on Monday when he fell ill at KLIA’s low-cost terminal, Fadzil said.
Kim Jong-Nam’s body was taken on Wednesday morning to a second hospital, where an autopsy was being performed.
Malaysia is one of a dwindling number of countries that has close relations with North Korea, whose nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches – the latest of which took place on Sunday – have provoked global sanctions.
Malaysians and North Koreans can visit each other’s country without visas.