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Updated: 10am
A FEMALE SUSPECT in the murder of North Korean leader’s half-brother has been arrested, according the Malaysian police.
Two female agents are believed to have used some kind of toxin in the attack, with reports from Malaysia and South Korea saying Kim Jong-Nam had been stabbed with poison-tipped needles or had chemicals sprayed in his face.
His body is to undergo an autopsy today, police said, as they tried to piece together how the Cold War-style killing happened at a Malaysian airport.
The assassination, which came as North Korea readied to celebrate the birthday this week of the two men’s father, illustrates the “brutal and inhumane” nature of the Pyongyang regime led by Kim Jong-Un, Seoul said.
Police in Malaysia are examining CCTV footage from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to try to determine what happened during the attack on Monday morning.
“He told the receptionist at the departure hall that someone had grabbed his face from behind and splashed some liquid on him,” Selangor state’s criminal investigation chief Fadzil Ahmat was reported as saying by Malaysia’s The Star newspaper.
“He asked for help and was immediately sent to the airport’s clinic. At this point, he was experiencing headache and was on the verge of passing out,” said Fadzil.
At the clinic, the victim experienced a mild seizure. He was put into an ambulance and was being taken to the Putrajaya Hospital when he was pronounced dead.
South Korean reports had earlier suggested the two female assassins had used poison-tipped needles during the killing, before fleeing in a taxi.
His body has been taken to a Kuala Lumpur hospital under police guard, where pathologists are expected to run tests to determine exactly how he died.
Fall from grace
Kim had at one time been set to assume the leadership of his isolated country, but fell out of favour after an embarrassing attempt to get into Japan on a fake passport in 2001.
He has since lived in exile, mostly in the gambling haven of Macau, but he has also been spotted in other Asian countries and there have been reports of his playboy lifestyle.
Kim, 45, is believed to have been in Malaysia on a passport bearing the name Kim Chol, a known alias, according to South Korean media.
But Seoul has confirmed that the dead man was a member of the Kim dynasty.
“Our government is certain that the murdered man is Kim Jong-Nam,” said Chung Joon-Hee, a spokesman for Seoul’s unification ministry that handles inter-Korea affairs.
“If confirmed, the murder of Kim Jong-Nam would be an example that shows the brutality and inhumane nature of the North Korean regime,” acting leader Hwang Kyo-Ahn told a meeting of top security officials earlier, according to his spokesman.
In Pyongyang, celebrations had begun for tomorrow’s anniversary of the birth of Kim Jong-Il, Jong-Nam’s father, with no mention of the killing.
Around 3,000 uniformed government officials and women in traditional dresses gathered for an ice skating gala featuring North Korean and foreign skaters. Banners proclaiming “peace”, “independence” and “friendship” hung in the venue.
Kim’s killing is thought to be the highest-profile death under the Jong-Un regime since the execution of the leader’s uncle, Jang Song-Thaek, in December 2013.
Jong-Un has been trying to strengthen his grip on power in the face of growing international pressure over his country’s nuclear and missile programmes, and regular reports have emerged on purges and executions.
Jong-Nam, known as an advocate of reform in the North, once told Japanese reporters that he opposed his country’s dynastic system.
In a 2012 interview from his school in Bosnia, a 17-year-old Kim Han-Sol, Jong-Nam’s son, said his father had been passed over for succession because he “was not really interested in politics”.
“I don’t really know why he became a dictator,” Kim said of his uncle Kim Jong-Un. ”It was between him and my grandfather.”
It also emerged that Jong-Nam had pleaded with his younger brother for his life to be spared after an earlier assassination attempt.
“Jong-Nam in April 2012 sent a letter to Jong-Un saying ‘Please spare me and my family,’” Kim Byung-Kee, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, told reporters.
“It also said ‘We have nowhere to go… we know that the only way to escape is suicide’,” he said, after a closed-door briefing by Seoul’s spy chief.
Cheong Seong-Chang of the independent Sejong Institute in Seoul said the assassination was “unthinkable without a direct order or approval from Kim Jong-Un himself”.
His killing was likely motivated by a recent news report that Kim Jong-Nam had sought to defect to the EU, the US or South Korea as far back as in 2012, he said.
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Hang on a second !
Hold on there now…time lord is a legit occupation?
This is great news. I’m really going to use this extra time to catch up on all those little jobs I’ve meaning to get around to, or perhaps a lie in would be better.
I had an anti climax once. She met a fella on a cruise after a few vodkas.
I don’t understand most of that.
Good. I work in IT and the more people who do not understand it, the more we can charge (rubs hands with glee, pets white cat on lap…. muohahahah !)
As the earth’s rotation slows, days are getting longer
Y2K was a damp squib, nothing happened, but lots of it companies made a lot of money out of it.
but maybe if all that money and effort was not spent it would have been a very wet squib?
I mean a very dry squib of course.
what is a squib and why is a damp one such an anticlimax?
a squib is type of explosive , a damp one won’t explode.
……you sir, are a fountain of knowledge…. now I need to look this up, where did I leave my google?
Actually issues did happen:
http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~eroberts/cs91/projects/y2k/Y2K_Errors.html
Also, most bank software programmers [and this was mostly in COBOL at the time] spent a long time working crazy hours getting sh*t together and correct so that stuff like applying 99 years of credit to accounts wouldnt happen.
There is another one feasibly going to come in 2038 when the unix epoch time rolls over to zero again. Thankfully it only affects 32-bit-integer related systems, but still gonna be hilarious….
B
A squib was a very little stick of dynamite that you could buy in the boys store before all this health and safety nonsense took hold. When a kid was allowed matches you could light them to blow up little bunkers of sand where the enemy toy soldiers were, classic.
God says: To me a thousand years is but a second. However I will grant you your greatest wish.
Pope Francis: Okay God I wish to win the Euro Lotto €180,000,000.
God says: Your wish is granted!! Wait a second!!!!!
Is it April the 1st?
If it was that would be nearly 4 months less.
This is very confusing
It isn’t really confusing.
I’m delighted for you. But I find it is.
A day lasts 24hrs because that’s how long it takes to spin around once. Except that its always gradually slowing down so the eggheads add an extra second to one particular day every few years to compensate. This angers god hugely, who retaliates by setting off volcanoes and smiting old people, etc.
have your say