What to Know About the Killing of Kim Jong Nam

The portly and gregarious Mr Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, was assaulted on Monday morning in the departure hall of Kuala Lumpur International Airport and died on the way to hospital, Malaysian police said.

Meanwhile, Malaysian police has detained a woman holding Vietnam travel papers and are looking for a “few” other foreign suspects in connection with Jong-nam’s assasination. The women are believed to have been working for North Korea.

South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said Wednesday that North Korea had been trying for five years to kill Kim Jong Nam.

Kim Jong Nam had been critical of Kim Jong Un, reportedly saying in 2012 that he “won’t last long” because of his youth and inexperience. Police said Kim had been sprayed in the face with an unidentified liquid before complaining of “extreme pain” and being rushed to hospital, where he died.

Police said the woman was detained in the low-priced terminal of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and was carrying Vietnamese travel documents.

In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was caught at an airport in Japan traveling with a fake passport, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. It indicates Kim Jong Nam had followers and his brother “felt insecure about it”, he said.

The death comes a day after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan in a test, which interrupted a dinner between United States president Donald Trump and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

The South Korean government source who spoke to Reuters did not immediately provide further details.

China fears instability at its shared border with North Korea.

In 1997, a nephew of one of Kim Jong Il’s former wives was killed outside a Seoul apartment 15 years after she defected to South Korea.

Malaysian Police on Wednesday revealed a woman had been arrested in connection with the murder at the capital’s global airport. “We do not know his identity”, Abdul said.

The South’s MOU, however, is yet to officially confirm the alleged murder of Kim in Kuala Lumpur.

CNN reports that Kim Jong-Nam was absent from his father’s funeral in 2011, at the time fueling rumors that he’d been banished from North Korea. Nam Sung-wook at Korea University said, “Kim Jong-un now marks his fifth year in power and seems to have done some pruning to streamline his leadership structure”. Reports of other brutal executions, involving artillery shells and flamethrowers, have also been hard to confirm.

Officials said that Kim’s half-brother frequently spent time away from North Korea, and so he held little sway over the nation’s politics. For that reason, Kim Jong Nam was considered an illegitimate son and grew up in seclusion, Cheong said.