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Kim’s older half-brother killed in Malaysia
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THE estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been murdered in Malaysia, a South Korean government source said yesterday.
Kim Jong Nam, the older half brother of the North Korean leader, was known to spend a lot of his time outside the country and had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the state.
Malaysian police said the dead man, aged 46, held a passport under the name Kim Chol.
Kim Jong Nam has been caught in the past using forged travel documents.
Police official Fadzil Ahmat said the cause of Kim’s death was not yet known, and a post mortem would be carried out on the body.
“So far there are no suspects, but we have started investigations and are looking at a few possibilities to get leads,” Fadzil said.
According to Fadzil, Kim planned to travel to China’s Macau on Monday when he fell ill at the low-cost terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. “The deceased ... felt like someone grabbed or held his face from behind,” Fadzil said. “He felt dizzy, so he asked for help at the ... counter of KLIA.”
Kim was taken to an airport clinic where he still felt unwell, and it was decided to take him to hospital. He died in the ambulance on the way to Putrajaya Hospital, Fadzil added.
South Korea’s TV Chosun, a cable-TV network, reported that Kim had been poisoned with a needle by two women believed to be North Korean operatives who fled in a taxi and were at large, citing Seoul government sources.
“We don’t know if there was a cloth or needles; the receptionist said someone grabbed his face, he felt dizzy,” police official Fadzil said, when asked about the nature of the attack.
Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Un are both sons of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died in late 2011, but they had different mothers.
Kim Jong Nam did not attend his father’s funeral.
The portly and easygoing Kim Jong Nam was believed to be close to his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was North Korea’s second most powerful man before being executed on Kim Jong Un’s orders in 2013.
In an embarrassing 2001 incident, Kim Jong Nam was caught at an airport in Japan traveling on a forged Dominican Republic passport, saying he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
Kim Jong Nam said several times over the years that he had no interest in leading his country. “Personally, I am against third-generation succession,” he told Japan’s Asahi TV in 2010. “I hope my younger brother will do his best for the sake of North Koreans’ prosperous lives.”
His mother was an actress named Song Hye Rim.
“My father was keeping highly secret the fact that he was living with my mother who was married, a famous movie actress, so I couldn’t get out of the house or make friends,” Kim Jong Nam was quoted as saying in a 2012 book by a Japanese journalist.
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