Malaysia will return the body of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, the country’s deputy prime minister said on February 16, as police probing the airport assassination arrested a second woman. / AFP PHOTO /
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysian government scientists were on Friday examining samples from the autopsy of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, after the 45-year-old was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur’s airport.
Police were meanwhile questioning two female suspects who were arrested carrying Vietnamese and Indonesian passports, as well as a Malaysian man, as they attempted to shed light on the murder of Kim Jong-Nam.
Lab forensics received samples from the post-mortem late Thursday and will “conduct the analysis as soon as possible”, Dr Cornelia Charito Siricord of the science ministry’s chemistry department told national news agency Bernama.
The estranged elder sibling of Kim Jong-Un had some kind of liquid sprayed into his face after being set upon by two women as he readied to board a flight to Macau on Monday, Malaysian police have said.
Jong-Nam told staff he was suffering from a headache and was taken to the airport clinic grimacing in pain, according to Malaysian media citing CCTV footage from the airport.
He was rushed to hospital suffering from a seizure but was dead before he arrived.
South Korea has pointed the finger of blame at the North, citing a “standing order” from Jong-Un to kill his sibling and a failed assassination bid in 2012 after he criticised the regime.
Pyongyang has made no comment on the killing, but its diplomats objected to the post-mortem being carried out, a senior Malaysian official familiar with the investigation told AFP.
Malaysia’s deputy prime minister said on Thursday he believed North Korea had put in a request to claim the body through the police and the hospital, and that Malaysia was ready to comply once investigations were completed.
Police on Wednesday arrested a 28-year-old woman carrying a Vietnamese passport which identified her as Doan Thi Huong.
She was shown in CCTV images from the airport wearing a white top with the letters “LOL” emblazoned on the front, according to Malaysian media.
Officers later arrested Muhammad Farid Bin Jalaluddin, a 26-year-old Malaysian man. He led them to his girlfriend, a 25-year-old Indonesian named Siti Aishah according to her travel documents, who was also arrested.
Police obtained a seven-day remand order for the two female suspects, Selangor state police chief Abdul Samah Mat told AFP.
© Agence France-Presse