North Korean embassy counsellor keeps mum over Ri Jong Chol deportation

Ahmad Zahid said Jong-chol, 47, who is now held at the Immigration Department detention depot, will be flown to Beijing this evening and later to Pyongyang, accompanied by two officials from the North Korean Embassy.

“The tattoos visible on Jong Nam’s stomach and left arm matched those on the body in HKL (Kuala Lumpur General Hospital Morgue)”, the report said.

A North Korean delegation led by Vice-Minister Ri Kil-song came back home after visiting China, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a one-sentence dispatch.

On Friday, an arrest warrant for Air Koryo employee Kim Uk Il was issued.

Kuala Lumpur police have arrested the women and one North Korean national, and are seeking seven other North Koreans, including a diplomat based in Kuala Lumpur, for questioning. The women smeared the VX nerve agent on Kim’s face, according to Malaysian police. They have yet to make a formal plea in their case.

South Korean and Japanese media, citing diplomatic sources, have since reported that the U.S. has been mulling placing the North back on its terror list, which includes Iran and Syria.

Ri was released early Friday after his second remand expired. He said he understood that Malaysian officials found medication for diabetes, heart problems and high blood pressure in Kim’s belongings and concluded he wasn’t fit to travel.

Ri said he was not at the airport on the day of the killing, and knew nothing about the accusation that his auto was used in the case.

IGP Khalid Abu Bakar says police will only consider DNA tests to positively identify the North Korean. He also slammed the North Korean ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, who has accused Malaysia of “trying to hide something” and “colluding with hostile forces”.

His assailants were two foreign women, who were charged with his murder on Wednesday.

Speculation has run rampant that dictator Kim Jong Un orchestrated the James Bond-style hit against his half-brother, with whom he had a rocky relationship.

Indonesian suspect Siti Aisyah (ABOVE) and Vietnamese suspect Doan Thi Huong (BELOW), in the ongoing assassination investigation, is escorted by police officers out from Sepang court in Malaysia, yesterday.

When suspicions were expressed, North Korea responded with silence or with wounded indignation.

North Korea has not acknowledged the identity of the dead man but has insisted Malaysia hand over the corpse, and says it does not accept the findings of an autopsy. Ri Tong Il, North Korea’s former representative at the United Nations, told reporters on Thursday that it was unlikely that the “very toxic” VX was used, otherwise the two women who carried out the attack would not have survived.