Third suspect arrested in Kim Jong Nam assassination
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Malaysian police said Thursday that they arrested a third person in connection with the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
A Malaysian man, the boyfriend of the second suspect arrested in the case, was detained Wednesday evening, police said.
"He is not the main suspect,” police official Abdul Samah told Malaysian news site Malay Mail Online. “We detained him because we needed more information about the second suspect. He is her boyfriend. When we got him, (and) through him, we managed to detain the second suspect," he said.
Police identified the second suspect as Siti Aishah, 25, from Banten province in Indonesia. Indonesia’s foreign ministry confirmed she was an Indonesian citizen.
“Following that verification, the embassy has requested consular access to the Government of Malaysia to provide assistance in order to ensure her legal rights,” a statement by the Indonesian ministry said.
The first suspect, a 28-year-old woman detained Wednesday at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, was carrying a Vietnamese passport with the name Doan Thi Huong, police said. Vietnam has not confirmed if she is a citizen.
Kim Jong Nam, who was 46 according to a police report, was the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un, 33.
Bernama, a Malaysian news site, reported that the body will be released to family or the North Korean embassy after police and medical procedures are completed.
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Lee Byung Ho, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, said Kim was killed with a poison. The incident happened Monday at the Kuala Lumpur airport. An autopsy was completed late Wednesday, but the results have not been released.
In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was arrested at Tokyo’s Narita Airport after trying to enter Japan on a forged passport from the Dominican Republic. He told police he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
After falling out of favor with his father, Kim Jong Nam lived in exile in Macau, a Chinese island known as a gambling mecca. In emails to the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun, he said the rift had grown because he insisted on reforms. "After I went back to North Korea following my education in Switzerland, I grew further apart from my father because I insisted on reform and market-opening and was eventually viewed with suspicion,” he wrote.
Kim Jong Nam also criticized North Korea’s dynastic succession and that he had no interest in running the country, which remains in the iron grip of his half-brother. It was widely speculated that he lived in fear for his life under Kim Jong Un's harsh regime, and there have been reports of other assassination attempts in the past.
North Korea marks birth of late leader Kim Jong Il
It is the highest-profile North Korean death since Kim Jong Un's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was executed in December 2013.
On Thursday, North Koreans celebrated what would have been the 75th birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il with an annual display of dancing, flowers and special treats for children. Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack in 2011.
There has been no mention of Kim Jong Nam’s death in North Korea's official media, according to the Associated Press.
Onyanga-Omara reported from London.