Malaysia seeks to preserve Kim body, deports 50 N. Koreans
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MALAYSIA said yesterday that the body of Kim Jong Nam has been embalmed to stop it decomposing, as it lies unclaimed in a Kuala Lumpur morgue a month after his assassination.
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi also announced the deportation of 50 North Korean workers in an apparent exception to a departure ban imposed after the killing of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The assassination, carried out with VX nerve agent at one of Malaysia’s main airports, triggered an angry standoff between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang that has seen them expel each other’s ambassadors and refuse to let their citizens leave.
Pyongyang, which has not confirmed Kim’s identity, has repeatedly demanded the return of his body but Malaysian authorities have refused to release it without a DNA sample from next-of-kin.
The body, being kept in a morgue in the capital, has been embalmed to prevent it from decomposing more than a month after the assassination, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.
“It’s an effort to preserve the body, because if it is kept in the mortuary it might decompose,” he told reporters.
A senior official close to the investigation said that the body would either need to be stored at very low temperatures or embalmed by an undertaker to keep it from decomposing.
In the case of ongoing investigations, however, bodies must usually be kept at higher temperatures so they don’t turn to ice.
“If we keep the body below zero degrees Celsius, it will become ice,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“At the morgue, the bodies are kept at 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius. But after one month, there will be a slow process of decomposition,” he added. “If we need to keep the body longer, we have to preserve it.”
In the case of Kim, the body was apparently thawed on several occasions in the course of the probe and had already begun to show signs of decomposition, the New Straits Times reported yesterday.
Hamidi also said that 50 North Koreans working in Sarawak state on Borneo island — home to coal mines which often employ foreign workers — would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban.
“We will send the North Korean workers in Sarawak who have exceeded their visa back to Pyongyang for overstaying,” he said. “They will be deported soon.”
He did not say why the government had decided on the expulsion despite Kuala Lumpur’s bar on North Koreans leaving the country — a tit-for-tat measure imposed after Pyongyang banned Malaysians leaving last week.
The diplomatic crisis erupted last month after North Korea attacked Malaysia’s investigation as an attempt to smear the country. Three Malaysian embassy staff and six family members are now stranded in Pyongyang.
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