Two more suspects - including another woman - have been arrested in connection with the suspected assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong Nam, police said today.
Kim Jong-nam is believed to have been poisoned by two women as he waited for a flight at Kuala Lumpur international airport in Malaysia.
They were caught on CCTV and images, confirmed as authentic by police, appeared to show one of the women in a skirt and long-sleeved white T-shirt with “LOL” emblazoned across the front.
A first female suspect was arrested yesterday.
She was said to hold Vietnamese travel documents bearing the name Doan Thi Huong, 28.
Malaysian police identified the second woman as Siti Aishah, 25, from Serang in Banten, a province that neighbors the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
There was no immediate way to determine if the IDs were genuine or if the women were believed to be the alleged assassins.
Indonesia’s foreign ministry said the second woman was believed to be Indonesian citizen and officials have requested consular access to her.
She was detained hours after a Malaysian man, believed to be her boyfriend, was also arrested last night.
Police official Abdul Samah said he provided information that led to her arrest.
The two female suspects were remanded in custody for seven days.
An Indonesian news portal published a photo of the identification page of an Indonesian passport belonging to Siti Aisyah that differed from the details released by Malaysian police only in the spelling of the name. “Aishah” is a spelling typically used in Malaysia whereas “Aisyah” is commonly used in Indonesia.
Several million Indonesians work in Malaysia as maids and construction and plantation workers.
Mr Kim suddenly fell ill in the airport’s departure hall on Monday before he died on the way to hospital.
Police said a post-mortem had been completed, with the results yet to be made public.
It is suspected that he was killed, possibly using a poisoned pen or other lethal substance.
Suspicions were pointing towards Pyongyang and whether an assassination squad had been sent to murder him.
Kim Jong-Nam reportedly pleaded with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un in 2012, to call off assassins after an apparent failed attempt to kill him.
The half-brother in exile is said to have angered the regime by branding it a “joke” and predicting it would collapse.
But there is no proof so far that North Korea was involved in his death.
The pariah country was today celebrating what would have been the 75th birthday of Kim Jong-il, the late leader and father of both Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-un.
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Tra said the Vietnamese authorities were closely coordinating with the Malaysians on the case.
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