KUALA LUMPUR // The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korea’s leader is to undergo a postmortem on Wednesday as police try to piece together how the Cold War-style killing happened at a Malaysian airport.
Two female agents are believed to have used some kind of toxin in the attack, in which Kim Jong-nam, 45, was stabbed with poison-tipped needles or had chemicals sprayed in his face.
The assassination, which came as North Korea prepared to celebrate the birthday this week of the two men’s father, illustrates the “brutal and inhumane” nature of the Pyongyang regime led by Kim Jong-un, Seoul said.
Police in Malaysia are examining CCTV footage from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to try to determine what happened during the attack on Monday morning.
“He told the receptionist at the departure hall that someone had grabbed his face from behind and splashed some liquid on him,” Selangor state’s criminal investigation chief Fadzil Ahmat reportedly said.
“He asked for help and was immediately sent to the airport’s clinic. At this point, he was experiencing headache and was on the verge of passing out.
“At the clinic, the victim experienced a mild seizure. He was put into an ambulance and was being taken to the Putrajaya Hospital when he was pronounced dead.”
On Wednesday his body was taken to a Kuala Lumpur hospital under police guard, where pathologists were expected to run tests to determine exactly how he died.
Jong-nam, the eldest son of the late former leader Kim Jong-il, was once seen as heir apparent but fell out of favour following an embarrassing failed attempt in 2001 to enter Japan on a forged passport and visit Disneyland.
He had since lived in virtual exile, mainly in the Chinese territory of Macau, while Jong-un took over the isolated and nuclear-armed state after the death of his father in December 2011.
The North in 2012 tried to assassinate Jong-nam – known to be a supporter of reform in Pyongyang – Seoul lawmakers said, following a closed-door briefing by the chief of the National Intelligence Service, Lee Byung-ho.
“According to [Lee] ... there was one bid in 2012, and Jong-nam in April 2012 sent a letter to Jong-un saying ‘Please spare me and my family’,” said Kim Byung-kee, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee.
“It also said ‘We have nowhere to go ... we know that the only way to escape is suicide’.” Jong-nam had little political support in the North and posed little threat to Jong-un, he said.
The assassination is more an indication of Jong-un’s “paranoid personality” than a calculated move to remove a political threat, the spy chief said.
Jong-nam was the eldest son of Kim Jong-il with his first wife, and in the deeply patriarchal North the first son is seen as the official heir of the family. But the succession instead went to Jong-un, who was born to Jong-il’s third wife – a potential taint in his legitimacy as leader.
Jong-nam’s family – his former and current wives and three children – are currently living in Beijing and Macau. “They are under the protection of the Chinese authorities,” said another intelligence committee member, Lee Cheol-woo. Jong-nam had entered Malaysia on February 6, he said.
Jong-nam’s murder was the highest-profile death under Kim Jong Un’s regime since the execution of the leader’s uncle Jang Song-thaek for treason in December 2013.
Jang, known to be close to China and an advocate of economic reform, played a key role in Jong-un’s rise to power but his power was believed to have irritated the young ruler.
Jong-nam – believed to have ties with Beijing’s elite – was a relatively outspoken figure, publicly criticising Pyongyang’s political system on a few occasions.
He said he “personally opposed” the hereditary power transfer in his own family, during an interview with Japan’s Asahi TV in 2010.
One of his sons – Han-Sol – also described his uncle Jong-un as a “dictator” in a rare interview with a Finnish TV station in 2012 while he was studying in Europe.
Jong-nam is the latest member of the elite to have been murdered or faced such a threat, after falling out of favour with the regime that has ruled the country with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult since its founding in 1948.
* Agence France-Presse