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Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of Kim Jong-un, assassinated in Malaysia
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FEB. 23, 2017
Khalid Abu Bakar, Malaysia’s national police chief, speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. Credit Associated Press
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The poison used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was VX nerve agent, which is listed as a chemical weapon, the Malaysian police announced Friday.
In a brief statement, Khalid Abu Bakar, the national police chief, said the substance was listed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Conventions of 1997 and 2005, to which North Korea is not a party.
South Korea has suggested that the killing was the work of the North Korean government. The revelation that a banned weapon was used in such a high-profile killing raises the stakes over how Malaysia and the international community will respond.
VX nerve agent can be delivered in two compounds that are mixed at the last moment to create a lethal dose. The police say that two women approached Mr. Kim at the airport with the poison on their hands and rubbed it on his face one after the other.
Continue reading the main story
Samples were taken from Mr. Kim’s skin and eyes. The poison was identified in a preliminary analysis by the Center for Chemical Weapons Analysis of the Chemistry Department of Malaysia, Mr. Khalid said.
The Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use and stockpiling of chemical weapons, and North Korea is among the world’s largest possessors of such weapons. In 2014, the South Korean Defense Ministry said the North had stockpiled 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons and had a capacity to produce a variety of biological weapons. (The North has conducted five nuclear tests since 2006.)
VX is part of a family of nerve agents created decades ago during research into pesticides. It is tasteless and odorless and kills by causing uncontrollable muscle contractions, which eventually stop the victim from breathing. A dose of about 10 milligrams is enough to kill by skin contact, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Several world powers, including the United States and the former Soviet Union, once had large stockpiles of the nerve agent. American stores of VX were destroyed under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, with incineration completed in 2012.
Photo
Kim Jong-nam gesturing toward his face while talking to airport security and officials at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport on Feb. 13. He died shortly afterward. Credit Footage from Kuala Lumpur airport security cameras obtained by Fuji TV, via Associated Press
In 1994 and 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo used homemade VX to attack three people, one of whom died.
North Korea is estimated to have a chemical weapons production capability of up to 4,500 metric tons during a typical year and 12,000 tons during a period of extended crisis. It is widely reported to possess a large arsenal of chemical weapons, including mustard, phosgene and sarin gas, a United States Congressional Research Service report said last year.
The announcement by Malaysia’s police chief came just a day after North Korea denied any responsibility for Mr. Kim’s death, accusing the Malaysian authorities of fabricating evidence of Pyongyang’s involvement under the influence of South Korea.
With the North’s reclusive government on the defensive about the Feb. 13 killing of Mr. Kim, the estranged half brother of Kim Jong-un, at the airport for the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, a statement attributed to the North Korean Jurists Committee said the greatest share of responsibility for the death “rests with the government of Malaysia” because Kim Jong-nam died there. And in what could be seen as a threat to Malaysia, the statement noted that North Korea is a “nuclear weapons state.”
But in a case that has been filled with mysteries and odd plot twists, North Korea still would not acknowledge that the man killed was indeed Kim Jong-nam. And it gave no indication that it would agree to Malaysia’s demands to question a senior staff member at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in the investigation into Mr. Kim’s death.
Relatives and acquaintances of the two women Malaysia has accused of carrying out the killing, by applying poison to Kim-Jong-nam’s face as North Korean agents looked on, insisted they must have been duped into doing so, though the Malaysian authorities say otherwise.
“I don’t believe Huong did such a thing,” said Doan Van Thanh, father of Doan Thi Huong, 28, a Vietnamese woman being held in Malaysia. “She was a very timid girl. When she saw a rat or frog, she would scream.”
Mr. Thanh, 63, said he had seen little of his daughter recently. He said she left the family’s home, in a village south of Hanoi, at 17 to attend community college, where she studied to be a pharmacist.
Photo
Mr. Kim, the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, in 2010. Credit Shin In-Seop/JoongAng Ilbo, via Associated Press
She later left Vietnam to work in Malaysia without telling her family and rarely visited, Mr. Thanh said. When she returned home in January for the Tet holiday, he said, she stayed only a few days.
On Thursday in Nghia Binh, Ms. Huong’s hometown, her brother, Doan Van Binh, said that she posted on Facebook under the alias Ruby Ruby. Her Facebook photographs and the attached location information appear to show that she had visited Malaysia twice since January, and her Facebook friends include several people who write in Korean.
Mr. Binh said that Ms. Huong had also appeared in a singing contest on the television show “Vietnam Idol” in 2016. In a short video clip, a panel of judges rejected Ms. Huong after she sang just one line: “I want to stop breathing gloriously so that the loving memory will not fade.”
North Korea has called for the release of Ms. Huong, an Indonesian woman and a North Korean man who are being held by Malaysia in connection with the death of Mr. Kim.
The statement on Thursday from the Jurists Committee was cited by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, in the first comment on the killing from the North’s official news media. The statement accused the Malaysian authorities of pursuing a case “full of loopholes and contradictions” that proved that its investigators “intended to frame us.” It said Malaysia had done so under South Korean influence.
The statement said Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry and the local hospital first told the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur that Mr. Kim had died of “heart stroke,” asking North Korea to take the body and cremate it.
But Malaysian officials’ attitude began changing after the South Korean news media, citing anonymous sources, reported that Mr. Kim had been poisoned, according to the North Korean statement.
“The Malaysian secret police got involved in the case and recklessly made it an established fact” that the death had been a poisoning, according to the North Korean statement, which did not refer to Mr. Kim by name.
The statement questioned how Ms. Huong and the Indonesian suspect in the killing, Siti Aisyah, 25, had survived if, as Malaysian officials said, they had used their hands to apply a deadly poison.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/...Next&moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia
Khalid Abu Bakar, Malaysia’s national police chief, speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. Credit Associated Press
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The poison used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was VX nerve agent, which is listed as a chemical weapon, the Malaysian police announced Friday.
In a brief statement, Khalid Abu Bakar, the national police chief, said the substance was listed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Conventions of 1997 and 2005, to which North Korea is not a party.
South Korea has suggested that the killing was the work of the North Korean government. The revelation that a banned weapon was used in such a high-profile killing raises the stakes over how Malaysia and the international community will respond.
VX nerve agent can be delivered in two compounds that are mixed at the last moment to create a lethal dose. The police say that two women approached Mr. Kim at the airport with the poison on their hands and rubbed it on his face one after the other.
Continue reading the main story
Samples were taken from Mr. Kim’s skin and eyes. The poison was identified in a preliminary analysis by the Center for Chemical Weapons Analysis of the Chemistry Department of Malaysia, Mr. Khalid said.
The Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use and stockpiling of chemical weapons, and North Korea is among the world’s largest possessors of such weapons. In 2014, the South Korean Defense Ministry said the North had stockpiled 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons and had a capacity to produce a variety of biological weapons. (The North has conducted five nuclear tests since 2006.)
VX is part of a family of nerve agents created decades ago during research into pesticides. It is tasteless and odorless and kills by causing uncontrollable muscle contractions, which eventually stop the victim from breathing. A dose of about 10 milligrams is enough to kill by skin contact, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Several world powers, including the United States and the former Soviet Union, once had large stockpiles of the nerve agent. American stores of VX were destroyed under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, with incineration completed in 2012.
Photo
Kim Jong-nam gesturing toward his face while talking to airport security and officials at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport on Feb. 13. He died shortly afterward. Credit Footage from Kuala Lumpur airport security cameras obtained by Fuji TV, via Associated Press
In 1994 and 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo used homemade VX to attack three people, one of whom died.
North Korea is estimated to have a chemical weapons production capability of up to 4,500 metric tons during a typical year and 12,000 tons during a period of extended crisis. It is widely reported to possess a large arsenal of chemical weapons, including mustard, phosgene and sarin gas, a United States Congressional Research Service report said last year.
The announcement by Malaysia’s police chief came just a day after North Korea denied any responsibility for Mr. Kim’s death, accusing the Malaysian authorities of fabricating evidence of Pyongyang’s involvement under the influence of South Korea.
With the North’s reclusive government on the defensive about the Feb. 13 killing of Mr. Kim, the estranged half brother of Kim Jong-un, at the airport for the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, a statement attributed to the North Korean Jurists Committee said the greatest share of responsibility for the death “rests with the government of Malaysia” because Kim Jong-nam died there. And in what could be seen as a threat to Malaysia, the statement noted that North Korea is a “nuclear weapons state.”
But in a case that has been filled with mysteries and odd plot twists, North Korea still would not acknowledge that the man killed was indeed Kim Jong-nam. And it gave no indication that it would agree to Malaysia’s demands to question a senior staff member at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in the investigation into Mr. Kim’s death.
Relatives and acquaintances of the two women Malaysia has accused of carrying out the killing, by applying poison to Kim-Jong-nam’s face as North Korean agents looked on, insisted they must have been duped into doing so, though the Malaysian authorities say otherwise.
“I don’t believe Huong did such a thing,” said Doan Van Thanh, father of Doan Thi Huong, 28, a Vietnamese woman being held in Malaysia. “She was a very timid girl. When she saw a rat or frog, she would scream.”
Mr. Thanh, 63, said he had seen little of his daughter recently. He said she left the family’s home, in a village south of Hanoi, at 17 to attend community college, where she studied to be a pharmacist.
Photo
Mr. Kim, the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, in 2010. Credit Shin In-Seop/JoongAng Ilbo, via Associated Press
She later left Vietnam to work in Malaysia without telling her family and rarely visited, Mr. Thanh said. When she returned home in January for the Tet holiday, he said, she stayed only a few days.
On Thursday in Nghia Binh, Ms. Huong’s hometown, her brother, Doan Van Binh, said that she posted on Facebook under the alias Ruby Ruby. Her Facebook photographs and the attached location information appear to show that she had visited Malaysia twice since January, and her Facebook friends include several people who write in Korean.
Mr. Binh said that Ms. Huong had also appeared in a singing contest on the television show “Vietnam Idol” in 2016. In a short video clip, a panel of judges rejected Ms. Huong after she sang just one line: “I want to stop breathing gloriously so that the loving memory will not fade.”
North Korea has called for the release of Ms. Huong, an Indonesian woman and a North Korean man who are being held by Malaysia in connection with the death of Mr. Kim.
The statement on Thursday from the Jurists Committee was cited by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, in the first comment on the killing from the North’s official news media. The statement accused the Malaysian authorities of pursuing a case “full of loopholes and contradictions” that proved that its investigators “intended to frame us.” It said Malaysia had done so under South Korean influence.
The statement said Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry and the local hospital first told the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur that Mr. Kim had died of “heart stroke,” asking North Korea to take the body and cremate it.
But Malaysian officials’ attitude began changing after the South Korean news media, citing anonymous sources, reported that Mr. Kim had been poisoned, according to the North Korean statement.
“The Malaysian secret police got involved in the case and recklessly made it an established fact” that the death had been a poisoning, according to the North Korean statement, which did not refer to Mr. Kim by name.
The statement questioned how Ms. Huong and the Indonesian suspect in the killing, Siti Aisyah, 25, had survived if, as Malaysian officials said, they had used their hands to apply a deadly poison.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/...Next&moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia
Hamartia Antidote
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...76340c-fb27-11e6-aa1e-5f735ee31334_story.html
Suspect in Kim Jong Nam attack says she got $90 for a prank
The Indonesian woman who is one of the suspects in the killing of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un’s half brother said she was paid $90 for what she believed was a prank, an Indonesian official said Saturday.
Siti Aisyah also told authorities she did not want her parents to see her in custody, Andriano Erwin, Indonesia’s deputy ambassador to Malaysia, said one day after Malaysia revealed that VX nerve agent was used in the bizarre killing at Kuala Lumpur’s airport.
“She doesn’t want her family get sad to see her condition,” Erwin said after a 30-minute meeting with Aisyah. “She only delivered a message through us to her father and mother not to be worried and take care of their health.”
The public poisoning of Kim Jong Nam, which took place Feb. 13 amid crowds of travelers at the airport, appeared to be a well-planned hit. Kim was dead within hours of the attack, in which two women went up behind him and appeared to smear something onto his face.
Aisyah, 25, has said previously that she was duped into the attack, but Malaysian police say she and the other female suspect, a Vietnamese woman who also is in custody, knew what they were doing.
The revelation that VX nerve agent killed Kim has boosted speculation that North Korea had dispatched a hit squad to Malaysia to kill Kim, whose younger half brother is Kim Jong Un.
The thick, oily poison was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, experts say, and is banned under international treaties. North Korea, a prime suspect in the case, never signed that treaty, and has spent decades developing a complex chemical weapons program.
Though Kim Jong Nam was not an obvious political threat to his sibling, he may have been seen as a potential rival in the country’s dynastic dictatorship.
Malaysia hasn’t directly accused the North Korean government of being behind the attack, but officials have said four North Korean men provided the two women with poison. The four fled Malaysia shortly after the killing.
On Saturday, police confirmed that a raid earlier in the week on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur was part of the investigation. Senior police official Abdul Samah Mat, who is handling the investigation, did not specify what authorities found there, but said the items were being tested for traces of any chemicals.
Kim Jong Nam, who had been living abroad for years, was approached by the two women on Feb. 13 as he waited for a flight home to Macau. In grainy surveillance footage, the women appear to rub something onto his face before walking away in separate directions.
Malaysian police said they had been trained to go immediately to the washroom and clean their hands.
Both women seen in the video are in custody.
VX is an extremely powerful poison, with an amount no larger than a few grains of salt enough to kill. An odorless chemical, it can be inhaled, swallowed or absorbed through the skin. Then, in anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours, it can cause a range of symptoms, from blurred vision to a headache. Enough exposure leads to convulsions, paralysis, respiratory failure and death.
It has the consistency of motor oil and can take days or even weeks to evaporate. It could have contaminated anywhere Kim was afterward, including medical facilities and the ambulance he was transported in, experts say.
Airport officials and police have insisted the facility is safe. Abdul Samah, the police official, said police are tracing the suspects’ steps to ensure public safety.
Asked if the airport cleanup had started, he said: “It is already in process.”
Suspect in Kim Jong Nam attack says she got $90 for a prank
The Indonesian woman who is one of the suspects in the killing of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un’s half brother said she was paid $90 for what she believed was a prank, an Indonesian official said Saturday.
Siti Aisyah also told authorities she did not want her parents to see her in custody, Andriano Erwin, Indonesia’s deputy ambassador to Malaysia, said one day after Malaysia revealed that VX nerve agent was used in the bizarre killing at Kuala Lumpur’s airport.
“She doesn’t want her family get sad to see her condition,” Erwin said after a 30-minute meeting with Aisyah. “She only delivered a message through us to her father and mother not to be worried and take care of their health.”
The public poisoning of Kim Jong Nam, which took place Feb. 13 amid crowds of travelers at the airport, appeared to be a well-planned hit. Kim was dead within hours of the attack, in which two women went up behind him and appeared to smear something onto his face.
Aisyah, 25, has said previously that she was duped into the attack, but Malaysian police say she and the other female suspect, a Vietnamese woman who also is in custody, knew what they were doing.
The revelation that VX nerve agent killed Kim has boosted speculation that North Korea had dispatched a hit squad to Malaysia to kill Kim, whose younger half brother is Kim Jong Un.
The thick, oily poison was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, experts say, and is banned under international treaties. North Korea, a prime suspect in the case, never signed that treaty, and has spent decades developing a complex chemical weapons program.
Though Kim Jong Nam was not an obvious political threat to his sibling, he may have been seen as a potential rival in the country’s dynastic dictatorship.
Malaysia hasn’t directly accused the North Korean government of being behind the attack, but officials have said four North Korean men provided the two women with poison. The four fled Malaysia shortly after the killing.
On Saturday, police confirmed that a raid earlier in the week on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur was part of the investigation. Senior police official Abdul Samah Mat, who is handling the investigation, did not specify what authorities found there, but said the items were being tested for traces of any chemicals.
Kim Jong Nam, who had been living abroad for years, was approached by the two women on Feb. 13 as he waited for a flight home to Macau. In grainy surveillance footage, the women appear to rub something onto his face before walking away in separate directions.
Malaysian police said they had been trained to go immediately to the washroom and clean their hands.
Both women seen in the video are in custody.
VX is an extremely powerful poison, with an amount no larger than a few grains of salt enough to kill. An odorless chemical, it can be inhaled, swallowed or absorbed through the skin. Then, in anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours, it can cause a range of symptoms, from blurred vision to a headache. Enough exposure leads to convulsions, paralysis, respiratory failure and death.
It has the consistency of motor oil and can take days or even weeks to evaporate. It could have contaminated anywhere Kim was afterward, including medical facilities and the ambulance he was transported in, experts say.
Airport officials and police have insisted the facility is safe. Abdul Samah, the police official, said police are tracing the suspects’ steps to ensure public safety.
Asked if the airport cleanup had started, he said: “It is already in process.”
yantong1980
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VX is very, very bad stuff. It can hurt a lot people in the airport, and no one realized it. Obviously someone really want eliminate Jong Nam whatever it takes. RIP.
jhungary
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http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world...-brother/ar-AAnpL81?li=AA5249&ocid=spartanntp
Why N. Korea may have used VX to kill leader's half brother 3/43
Associated Press
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By KIM TONG-HYUNG4 hrs ago
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How a black leader pulled off his own fake obituary
© The Associated Press Hazmat crews investigate the check in kiosk machines at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 in Sepang, Malaysia on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017. Malaysian police ordered a sweep of… Was it a poorly executed assassination or did North Korea want to showcase its stockpile of banned chemical weapons?
The use of the highly toxic VX warfare agent to kill the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader has raised questions about Pyongyang's real motives in one of the strangest killings the world has seen.
Some say North Korea, in allegedly bringing a U.N.-classified weapon of mass destruction to kill a man at a busy international airport, intended to show the world what it can do with chemical weapons, which are easily forgotten amid concerns about the country's advancing nuclear missile technologies.
But other experts believe it's unlikely that North Korea wanted VX to be discovered. There's no reason for Pyongyang to risk taking another hit when it's already under heavy international sanctions over its nuclear program. It's also doubtful that the country would be suddenly willing to showcase its chemical weapons as a deterrent when it has never acknowledged their existence, the experts say.
For Pyongyang, killing Kim Jong Nam, who might have been seen as a potential threat to leader Kim Jong Un, would have been the clear priority that made any other consideration secondary, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.
"They probably picked the deadliest chemical at their disposal because they absolutely didn't want to fail at killing Kim Jong Nam," Koh said. "The fallout of using VX at an international airport could turn out to be significant for the country, but I doubt that the North Koreans thoroughly thought this through."
North Korea has denied involvement in the Feb. 13 attack on Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur's airport, and also refused to confirm that it was Kim who died. Saying that one of its nationals died from a "heart stroke," North Korea has strongly criticized the investigation by Malaysia, which has been one of its few legitimate diplomatic partners, and made repeated demands for Kim's body.
The overwhelming presumption that North Korea's government organized a hit job on Kim only strengthened after Malaysian police announced they found VX on his eyes and face. Analysts say it's almost certain that the highly powerful nerve agent, which scientists say is capable of killing 500 people through skin exposure with an amount weighing as much as just two pennies, would have been sourced from North Korea's state laboratories as its materials are tightly controlled internationally and hard to obtain.
South Korea's military believes North Korea has one of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with up to 5,000 tons that include sarin, mustard, tabun and hydrogen cyanide, in addition to V-type nerve agents.
If North Korea really did use VX to assassinate Kim, it would indicate a new level of sophistication in its handling of chemical weapons. The North Koreans probably needed to conduct many tests before figuring out the precise amount of VX that would kill Kim Jong Nam without harming the assailants or anyone else nearby in one of the world's busiest airports.
While some Western analysts have argued through the media that North Korea might have used Kim's assassination to draw attention to its chemical weapons, most South Korean experts doubt it.
North Korea, which has been pursuing nuclear weapons as an ultimate deterrent, has little to gain by highlighting its chemical weapons, which would only bring harsher punitive measures and put further pressure on the United States to relist the country as a state sponsor of terrorism, analysts say.
"North Korea was already under immense pressure over its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, and also its human rights issues. Things will get even more complicated for Pyongyang if its chemical weapons issues are thrown into the mix," said Chang Yong Seok, an analyst at Seoul National University's Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.
Perhaps North Korea expected that its use of VX would go undetected because only a tiny amount would have been needed to kill Kim, experts say.
Or maybe using VX might have been a logical choice for North Korea because it relied on two lightly trained foreign women to do the job. North Korea would have been reluctant to directly use its own operatives when it had no plans to acknowledge its involvement. A less powerful chemical, including those needing injection devices or other equipment, would have increased the possibility of the women failing to kill Kim or would require larger dosses that might have put more lives at risk.
It's still unclear how the two women handled the VX without contaminating themselves and others, including travelers and medical workers who handled Kim's body.
Some analysts say that North Korea probably produced VX in the form of a binary agent, where two chemicals that aren't separately deadly become a nerve agent when mixed together.
But a South Korean military researcher, who didn't want to be named because he wasn't authorized to talk to reporters, has doubts. While it can be made as a binary agent, VX doesn't synthesize easily, so wiping a person's face separately with two of its component chemicals may not be a surefire way to kill him, said the researcher.
What's more likely is that the North Koreans who allegedly organized the assassination coated the women's hands with protective chemicals before putting VX on them, he said. Aside from the two suspects, police have also arrested a North Korean who worked at a Malaysian company and are seeking seven more North Koreans who are believed to have been involved in Kim's death, including an embassy official and an airline employee.
"The security camera footage shows one of the women heading to the bathroom to wash her hands after attacking Kim. If she touched VX with her bare hands, she wouldn't have had the time to do even that," said the researcher.
They should have just ask me about this lol...........
Why N. Korea may have used VX to kill leader's half brother 3/43
Associated Press
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By KIM TONG-HYUNG4 hrs ago
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How a black leader pulled off his own fake obituary
The use of the highly toxic VX warfare agent to kill the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader has raised questions about Pyongyang's real motives in one of the strangest killings the world has seen.
Some say North Korea, in allegedly bringing a U.N.-classified weapon of mass destruction to kill a man at a busy international airport, intended to show the world what it can do with chemical weapons, which are easily forgotten amid concerns about the country's advancing nuclear missile technologies.
But other experts believe it's unlikely that North Korea wanted VX to be discovered. There's no reason for Pyongyang to risk taking another hit when it's already under heavy international sanctions over its nuclear program. It's also doubtful that the country would be suddenly willing to showcase its chemical weapons as a deterrent when it has never acknowledged their existence, the experts say.
For Pyongyang, killing Kim Jong Nam, who might have been seen as a potential threat to leader Kim Jong Un, would have been the clear priority that made any other consideration secondary, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.
"They probably picked the deadliest chemical at their disposal because they absolutely didn't want to fail at killing Kim Jong Nam," Koh said. "The fallout of using VX at an international airport could turn out to be significant for the country, but I doubt that the North Koreans thoroughly thought this through."
North Korea has denied involvement in the Feb. 13 attack on Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur's airport, and also refused to confirm that it was Kim who died. Saying that one of its nationals died from a "heart stroke," North Korea has strongly criticized the investigation by Malaysia, which has been one of its few legitimate diplomatic partners, and made repeated demands for Kim's body.
The overwhelming presumption that North Korea's government organized a hit job on Kim only strengthened after Malaysian police announced they found VX on his eyes and face. Analysts say it's almost certain that the highly powerful nerve agent, which scientists say is capable of killing 500 people through skin exposure with an amount weighing as much as just two pennies, would have been sourced from North Korea's state laboratories as its materials are tightly controlled internationally and hard to obtain.
South Korea's military believes North Korea has one of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with up to 5,000 tons that include sarin, mustard, tabun and hydrogen cyanide, in addition to V-type nerve agents.
If North Korea really did use VX to assassinate Kim, it would indicate a new level of sophistication in its handling of chemical weapons. The North Koreans probably needed to conduct many tests before figuring out the precise amount of VX that would kill Kim Jong Nam without harming the assailants or anyone else nearby in one of the world's busiest airports.
While some Western analysts have argued through the media that North Korea might have used Kim's assassination to draw attention to its chemical weapons, most South Korean experts doubt it.
North Korea, which has been pursuing nuclear weapons as an ultimate deterrent, has little to gain by highlighting its chemical weapons, which would only bring harsher punitive measures and put further pressure on the United States to relist the country as a state sponsor of terrorism, analysts say.
"North Korea was already under immense pressure over its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, and also its human rights issues. Things will get even more complicated for Pyongyang if its chemical weapons issues are thrown into the mix," said Chang Yong Seok, an analyst at Seoul National University's Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.
Perhaps North Korea expected that its use of VX would go undetected because only a tiny amount would have been needed to kill Kim, experts say.
Or maybe using VX might have been a logical choice for North Korea because it relied on two lightly trained foreign women to do the job. North Korea would have been reluctant to directly use its own operatives when it had no plans to acknowledge its involvement. A less powerful chemical, including those needing injection devices or other equipment, would have increased the possibility of the women failing to kill Kim or would require larger dosses that might have put more lives at risk.
It's still unclear how the two women handled the VX without contaminating themselves and others, including travelers and medical workers who handled Kim's body.
Some analysts say that North Korea probably produced VX in the form of a binary agent, where two chemicals that aren't separately deadly become a nerve agent when mixed together.
But a South Korean military researcher, who didn't want to be named because he wasn't authorized to talk to reporters, has doubts. While it can be made as a binary agent, VX doesn't synthesize easily, so wiping a person's face separately with two of its component chemicals may not be a surefire way to kill him, said the researcher.
What's more likely is that the North Koreans who allegedly organized the assassination coated the women's hands with protective chemicals before putting VX on them, he said. Aside from the two suspects, police have also arrested a North Korean who worked at a Malaysian company and are seeking seven more North Koreans who are believed to have been involved in Kim's death, including an embassy official and an airline employee.
"The security camera footage shows one of the women heading to the bathroom to wash her hands after attacking Kim. If she touched VX with her bare hands, she wouldn't have had the time to do even that," said the researcher.
They should have just ask me about this lol...........
hoangsa74
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I wonder if Doan thi huong is a special agent of the Vietnam spy agency or double agent cooperating with north korea. Vietnam vehemently wants to have access to her. Maybe the cell leader thought that the safest place to be is hide in plain sight and not running around to other places to get caught. Obviously if the two girls are expected to be death as part of the plan, they would not have been trained to put on some kind of protection and wash their hands later.
jhungary
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Most likely asset that has been recruited by the North Korean in Vietnam, she is probably vietnamese, or a North Korean of Vietnamese descent (Given there were North Korean fighting in Vietnam war, it can happen) They are Soviet/NK train as most of their way are former soviet doctrine.
There exist sleeper agent wh live in a shell country for years (10 years +) and so used to the custom and culture that the can be mistaken as a local agent, but I don't think this is the case as these two girls are not throughtly trained with (eg, they failed their exfil) and using VX would mean they only need minimal skill to ensure a kill because VX is very potent as a killing agent.
They are trained to a degree, but not like a fully trained field agent. They have maybe a few weeks to months to train with the movement and how to deal with VX at most. They are expected to either kill themself if they were caught, or they were supposed to be terminated after the job, as there are no planned exit strategy to leave the country, they are both not Malaysian, that mean someway, some how, they need to leave Malaysia, and I fail to see any strategy on doing this. If no exit strategy, that would mean either they are to be reused, or they are supposed to be terminated.
hoangsa74
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They are more than likely to be reused. If I were these girls, I would make it clear to the organizer of this hit that if you try to dispose me after this, I will have someone to expose you whole and I'm sure these girls had made it clear to the organizer. I'm thinking their exit strategy is hide in plain sight and stop wasting time running to other airport. As for the Vietnamese girl, she is from Nam Dinh city, her parents recognize her right away when the news broke and they have not seen her for sometimes.
jhungary
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doesn't look like a reuse tho.
bear in mind the vietnamese girl is caught leaving the country at the same airport, if they were to be reuse, that mean they would have to be stashed in a safehouse or even NK Embassy in malaysia, leaving a country usually eman they are not needed or something has gone wrong.
Although I was trained with basic espionage procedure, I don't actually know nor follow how North Korean spys works. So I cannot comment on whether or not they are going to be reuse.
The exit is very textbook, the way she engaged Kim Jong-nam is trained, there are basically no way she is a bystander who were duped into killing Kim Jong-nam, as she was quite efficient. She could have been recruited in Vietnam or Indonesia by the North Korean, but she was most definitely trained with spaycraft by an agency using Russian/Soviet Doctrine
nautilaceae
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Female suspects in Jong-nam murder to be charged on Wednesday
Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong (left) and Indonesian Siti Aishah will be charged on Wednesday.
SEPANG: The two female suspects held in connection with the murder of Kim Jong-nam will be charged at the Sepang magistrate’s court on Wednesday. Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali confirmed this when contacted by The Star on Tuesday.
The women, Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong and Indonesian citizen Siti Aisyah, are alleged to have administered the poison that killed Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) on Feb 13.
Doan was arrested on Feb 15 as she was attempting to catch a flight back to Vietnam, while Siti Aisyah was detained early the next day.
The remand for the pair, which was extended last week, expires at midnight Tuesday.
Apandi said the third suspect arrested, North Korean citizen Ri Jong Chol, would not be charged on Wednesday as police have not completed their investigations on him.
Three more men are being hunted by police in the investigation into Jong-nam’s murder.
Media personnel from local and foreign news organisations had gathered at the courthouse here early Tuesday morning after receiving information that Doan and Siti Aisyah were to be charged.
Jong-nam died after being sprayed with a chemical while awaiting a flight to Macau.
It was later confirmed that the assailants had used the VX nerve agent to poison him.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/02/28/female-suspects-to-be-charged/#o1ooo9UC5S05iW1H.99
Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong (left) and Indonesian Siti Aishah will be charged on Wednesday.
SEPANG: The two female suspects held in connection with the murder of Kim Jong-nam will be charged at the Sepang magistrate’s court on Wednesday. Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali confirmed this when contacted by The Star on Tuesday.
The women, Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong and Indonesian citizen Siti Aisyah, are alleged to have administered the poison that killed Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) on Feb 13.
Doan was arrested on Feb 15 as she was attempting to catch a flight back to Vietnam, while Siti Aisyah was detained early the next day.
The remand for the pair, which was extended last week, expires at midnight Tuesday.
Apandi said the third suspect arrested, North Korean citizen Ri Jong Chol, would not be charged on Wednesday as police have not completed their investigations on him.
Three more men are being hunted by police in the investigation into Jong-nam’s murder.
Media personnel from local and foreign news organisations had gathered at the courthouse here early Tuesday morning after receiving information that Doan and Siti Aisyah were to be charged.
Jong-nam died after being sprayed with a chemical while awaiting a flight to Macau.
It was later confirmed that the assailants had used the VX nerve agent to poison him.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/02/28/female-suspects-to-be-charged/#o1ooo9UC5S05iW1H.99
terranMarine
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The Viet and Indonesian are so dead 
, is a prank the best excuse they can come up with? I believe there's capital punishment in Malaysia
, is a prank the best excuse they can come up with? I believe there's capital punishment in Malaysiakatarabhumi
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The Viet and Indonesian are so dead
Sorry to disappoint...
Malaysia Frees Indonesian Suspect Jailed for 2 Years Over Kim Jong Nam's Killing
By Eileen Ng / AP Updated: March 10, 2019 11:52 PM ET | Originally published: March 11, 2019
(SHAH ALAM, Malaysia) — An Indonesian woman held two years on suspicion of killing the North Korean leader’s half brother was freed from custody Monday after prosecutors unexpectedly dropped the murder charge against her.
Siti Aisyah cried and hugged her co-defendant, Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, before leaving the courtroom. She told reporters she had only learned that morning that she would be freed. “I am surprised and very happy. I didn’t expect it.”
The two young women were accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam’s face in an airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13, 2017. They have said they thought they were taking part in a prank for a TV show. They had been the only suspects in custody after four North Korean suspects fled the country the same morning Kim was killed.
The High Court judge discharged Aisyah without an acquittal after prosecutors said they wanted to withdraw the murder charge against her. They did not give a reason.
Prosecutor Iskandar Ahmad said the discharge not amounting to acquittal means Aisyah can be recharged but there are no such plans for now.
Aisyah was quickly ushered out of the court building in an embassy car. Her lawyers said she is heading to the Indonesian Embassy and expected to fly to Jakarta soon.
Huong’s murder trial was put on hold after the surprise development. She was to have begun giving her defense in Monday’s court session, after months of delay.
“I am in shock. My mind is blank,” a distraught Huong told reporters through a translator after Aisyah left.
Indonesian Ambassador Rusdi Kirana said he was thankful to the Malaysian government. “We believe she is not guilty,” he said.
Huong’s Lawyer, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, said they will seek to postpone the trial. He said Huong was distraught and felt Aisyah’s discharge was unfair to her as the judge last year had found sufficient evidence to continue the murder trial against them.
A High Court judge last August had found there was enough evidence to infer Aisyah, Huong and the four missing North Koreans had engaged in a “well-planned conspiracy” to kill Kim Jong Nam. The defense phase of the trial had been scheduled to start in January but was delayed until Monday.
Salim Bashir, a lawyer for Huong, said previously she was prepared to testify under oath for her defense.
“She is confident and ready to give her version of the story. It is completely different from what the prosecutors had painted. She was filming a prank and had no intention to kill or injure anyone,” he told the AP.
Lawyers for the women have previously said they were pawns in a political assassination with clear links to the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and that the prosecution failed to show the women had any intention to kill. Intent to kill is crucial to a murder charge under Malaysian law.
Malaysian officials have never officially accused North Korea and have made it clear they don’t want the trial politicized.
Kim Jong Nam was the eldest son in the current generation of North Korea’s ruling family. He had been living abroad for years but could have been seen as a threat to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s rule.
http://time.com/5548847/kim-jong-nam-murder-charge-dropped/
http://time.com/5548847/kim-jong-nam-murder-charge-dropped/
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