KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The two young women were what South Korean intelligence calls “lizard’s tails,” expendable assets to be cast off after an operation.
Guided by North Korean agents, they practiced at malls in Kuala Lumpur, then set their sights on the target: Kim Jong Nam, the estranged elder brother of North Korea’s erratic leader, Kim Jong Un.
With hands doused with toxic liquid, they rubbed the face of their victim, who was waiting to check in for a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Minutes later, their target died on the way to a hospital. The two women washed their hands and fled.
The suspected assassins were swiftly taken into custody as circumstantial evidence mounted that North Korea was responsible for the attack.
The very public killing of Kim appears to be another remarkable episode in the annals of bizarre North Korean behaviour, a whodunit with geopolitical implications. Speculation swirled that he had been killed to remove him from the line of succession in North Korea.
In the days since the killing was caught on video, the drama has had an ever-expanding and multinational cast of characters — assassins from Indonesia and Vietnam, one of whom was apparently wearing a white shirt emblazoned with the letters LOL; a Malaysian boyfriend; and suspected North Korean agents.
On Wednesday, Malaysia’s police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said a senior diplomat at the North Korean Embassy and an employee of the North Korean state-owned airline, Air Koryo, were also wanted for questioning. Another North Korean, who was not identified, was also being sought. Khalid also said that extra police officers had been sent to the morgue where Kim’s body was being kept after an attempt to break into the facility was detected.
North Korea has refused to even acknowledge that the dead man was Kim Jong Nam and has accused Malaysia of carrying out a politically motivated investigation to placate South Korea and the United States.
Jiji Press via AFP / Getty Images This file photo taken on September 25, 2004 shows a man believed to be Jong-Nam
North Korea has nonetheless demanded that the body be sent there and, in a statement Wednesday, the North Korean Embassy said the two women were innocent and should be freed.
If the women really had poison on their hands, the embassy statement said, “then how is it possible that these female suspects could still be alive?”
One possible theory is that each woman used a single chemical that became lethal only when mixed with another. The Malaysian police, however, said that the substance or substances used in the attack had not yet been identified.
North Korea has denied any involvement in the killing, which is likely to anger China, its main ally, which has been seen as a protector of Kim Jong Nam.
Kumparan via Associated Press; Closed-circuit television (L) This photo from Indonesian news portal obtained on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 shows the portrait on the passport of Siti Aisyah, 25; (R) Police say they arrested a woman at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, on Wednesday in connection with the death of Kim Jong Nam
Kim had long been on a hit list drawn up by his half brother, according to South Korean intelligence. The younger Kim 33, has ordered the execution of scores of senior officials, including at least one disfavoured relative, and may have been prompted to act if he believed that Beijing saw his half brother as a possible replacement for him.
Malaysian authorities say the two women arrested, Doan Thi Huong, 28, and Siti Aisyah, 25, were recruited, trained and equipped by four North Koreans, who have since fled to their home country.
If the attack was a plot by North Korea, it would not be the first time it had tried to kill Kim Jong Nam.
MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images
In 2010, according to South Korean investigators, a North Korean agent based in China received a special order from Pyongyang: “Terminate” Kim Jong Nam and bring his body to the North.
That agent, Kim Young Soo, was told that Kim Jong Nam was going to travel to China from Singapore, where he was then living. The agent’s boss gave him a bundle of cash and ordered him to bribe a taxi driver to run over Kim in a fake traffic accident.
We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape is to choose suicide
The plot was scrapped when Kim failed to arrive as planned. But it came to light in 2012, when the agent was caught entering South Korea and confessed under interrogation.
Since 2011, when Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as North Korea’s ruler, there has been a standing order to assassinate his half brother, South Korean intelligence officials said last week. There was another assassination attempt against him in 2012.
Kim was so afraid that he begged for his life in a letter to his half brother in 2012.
“Please withdraw the order to punish me and my family,” Kim was quoted as saying in the letter. “We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape is to choose suicide.”
A Troubled Family
The Kim family, which has ruled North Korea since its founding in 1948, has presided over a Shakespearean nest of internecine plots and family intrigue. Rival relatives have been sent into exile and occasional bloody purges have killed off anyone of questionable loyalty and set an example for others.
Kim Jong Nam was an early dropout in the Kim dynasty’s third-generation power struggle. Sidelined from the race to succeed his father since the 1970s, when his mother was abandoned by his father, he had been effectively shut out of power, and shut off from his father, since he was a teenager. South Korean officials say he never met his half brother, Kim Jong Un.
Handout/AFP/Getty ImagesNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-il sits beside his son Kim Jong-nam — the half-brother of Kim Jong-un — in an Aug. 19, 1981 photo.
The final straw for Kim Jong Nam was when he was caught entering Japan on a false Dominican Republic passport in 2001, embarrassing the family. He told Japanese officials that he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
Kim lived in exile, mostly in Macau, but enjoyed the affluent life of a globe-trotting playboy, sometimes traveling with a female bodyguard. While his father was still alive, the government in Pyongyang sent him cash allowances.
His uncle, Jang Song Thaek, became a father figure and his main connection to his country. South Korean officials said Kim was thought to have used that connection to conduct business for himself, like handling contracts involving North Korean minerals.
Kim often visited Kuala Lumpur, where Jang’s nephew, Jang Yong Chol, served as North Korean ambassador until 2013.
AP Photo/Kyodo News, FileIn this Feb. 16, 2012 file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks past his uncle Jang Song Thaek, left, after reviewing a parade of thousands of soldiers and commemorating the 70th birthday of the late Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Kim sometimes stayed at an embassy guesthouse and sometimes at five-star hotels, according to Steve Hwang, a restaurant owner who became a friend.
Kim often came to the restaurant, Koryo-Won, with his wife, dressed casually and always wearing a baseball cap. A bodyguard sat outside in the mall, visible through the window.
“He was very humble, very friendly, a very nice guy,” Hwang said.
Kim never gave his name, but Hwang, who is from South Korea and has family in the North, recognized him. To be certain, he said he collected Kim’s dishes after a meal and sent them to the South Korean Embassy for fingerprint and DNA analysis, he said. The word came back that it was indeed Kim.
AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, FileNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a party congress in Pyongyang, North Korea.
When Kim Jong Un took power, he cut off his half brother’s allowance. In 2013, he executed their uncle, Jang, on charges of corruption and sedition. Jang’s nephew, the ambassador, was recalled the same year and is thought to have been executed.
Kim Jong Un may have been angered by reports that his half brother had once considered defecting to South Korea. After Kim Jong Nam’s assassination, some defectors claimed that he had been asked to serve as head of a government in exile. But Kim Jong Nam never formally proposed to defect, according to South Korean officials, and he had told reporters that he had no interest in politics, although he also criticized the dynastic succession in Pyongyang.
The Setup
When Kim Jong Nam arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 6, he was using a diplomatic passport with the name Kim Chol.
By then, it appears, the plot against him was already underway.
Four North Korean men accused of organizing the attack had begun arriving on Jan. 31, nearly a week before Kim, the police say. Each one landed on a different day. The last one arrived Feb. 7, a day after Kim.
AFP PHOTO / Royal Malaysian PoliceThis combo of handout pictures released by the Royal Malaysian Police in Kuala Lumpur on February 22, 2017 shows location image or CCTV footage (top row) and passport style photos (bottom row) of North Korean nationals (from L to R) 30-year-old Ri Ji U, 37-year-old North Korean airline employee Kim Uk Il, and 44-year-old diplomat Hyon Kwang Song, wanted for police questioning in connection to the February 13 assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Unlike most countries, Malaysia allows North Koreans to enter without a visa and makes it relatively easy for them to work. North Koreans have established a number of businesses in Malaysia to export products to other parts of the world and earn foreign currency to send home.
The four North Korean conspirators apparently recruited Doan and Siti from entertainment establishments. Siti worked as a “spa masseuse,” the police say, and Doan as an “entertainment outlet employee.”
Doan grew up in a small farming village in Vietnam about three hours south of Hanoi and studied pharmacy at a community college. Siti grew up in a farming village east of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. She quit school after sixth grade, was married at 16 and divorced at 20, before she left for Malaysia.
There were reports that the women were duped, that they had been told they were participating in a prank. Indonesian officials said they thought Siti was tricked into thinking that she was part of a comedy video involving spraying liquid onto unwitting victims in public.
AFP PHOTO / Royal Malaysian PoliceThis combo shows pictures released by the Royal Malaysian Police in Kuala Lumpur on February 19, 2017 of four suspects, Malaysian Muhammad Farid Bin Jalaluddin (top L), Doan Thi Huong (top R) of Vietnam, North Korean Ri Jong Chol (bottom L) and Siti Aisyah of Indonesia (bottom R), detained in connection to the February 13 assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
But Khalid, the police chief, said they knew what they were doing. The women had practiced the attack at two malls, he said.
“We strongly believe it is a planned thing and that they are being trained to do that,” he said. “It is not just shooting movies or a play thing. No way.”
The police say the plotters also brought in Ri Jong Chol, a North Korean who had been living and working in Kuala Lumpur since at least August. He was almost certainly a government agent, according to Thae Yong Ho, a North Korean diplomat who defected to the South last summer, because he was allowed to live with his family abroad.
On the morning of Feb. 13, Kim went to the airport to catch his flight home.
Security videos show him entering the departure hall at Terminal 2 carrying a shoulder bag, checking the departure board and walking toward the check-in counter for AirAsia, a budget airline.
After his encounter with the women, Kim approached airport staff and security officers, waving his hands toward his face repeatedly as he told them of the attack. They walked with him to the airport clinic one level down.
Within minutes, he was in an ambulance, but by then the poison was taking effect. He was dead before he reached the hospital, the police said.
His last words were, “Very painful, very painful. I was sprayed liquid,” China Press, a Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper, reported.
The police say the four North Korean conspirators watched the attack unfold. Soon after, they passed through immigration, had their passports stamped and left the country before the authorities realized Kim had been murdered. All are now believed to be in North Korea.
Nobody could protect him
Hwang said Kim had stopped coming to his restaurant around 2014, after his uncle’s execution, and may have fallen on lean times — which may explain why he had no bodyguards last week as he prepared to fly home on a budget carrier.
Hwang didn’t see him during his final trip to Kuala Lumpur and was surprised by his appearance in the security video. He was wearing a blazer, instead of his usual T-shirt, and no hat.
It was the first time Hwang saw that he was bald.
“Nobody could protect him,” he said.