The estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been assassinated in Malaysia, South Korean media reported yesterday, with one TV station saying he was attacked at Kuala Lumpur International Airport with poisoned needles.
Malaysian police said an unidentified Korean had been taken sick at the airport and died en route to a hospital, but they were still trying to confirm his identity.
South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it could not confirm the reports, and its intelligence agency could not immediately be reached for comment.
If confirmed, the case would be the highest-profile death under the Kim Jong-un regime since the execution of the brothers’ uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in December 2013.
Kim Jong-un has been trying to strengthen his grip on power in the face of growing international pressure over the North’s nuclear and missile programs.
The latest missile launch on Sunday brought UN Security Council condemnation.
South Korea’s national news agency Yonhap quoted a Seoul government source as saying Kim Jong-nam was killed on Monday. The source gave no further details.
The 45-year-old man was poisoned by two unidentified female agents using poisoned needles at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, according to South Korean broadcaster TV Chosun.
The report, citing what it called multiple government sources, said the two women hailed a taxi and fled immediately afterwards.
In Malaysia, the police chief in charge of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Assistant Commissioner Abdul Aziz Ali, told reporters that a Korean man in his forties was found sick at the airport on Monday.
Airport authorities rushed him to a hospital and he died on the way, the police chief said.
“We do not have any other details of this Korean man. We do not know his identity,” Abdul said.
Kim Jong-nam was once considered heir apparent, but fell out of favor with his father, Kim Jong-il, following an embarrassing botched attempt in 2001 to enter Japan on a forged passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
He has since lived in virtual exile, mainly in Macau, although a 2014 report put him in Indonesia — sighted at an Italian restaurant run by a Japanese businessman in Jakarta — and he was said to be shuttling back and forth between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and France.
Known as an advocate of reform in the North, he once told a Japanese newspaper that he opposed his country’s dynastic power transfers.
He was reportedly close to Jang Song-thaek, once the North’s unofficial No. 2 and political mentor of Kim Jong-un.
Kim Jong-nam had been targeted in the past.
In October 2012 South Korean prosecutors said a North Korean detained as a spy had admitted involvement in a plot to stage a hit-and-run car accident in China in 2010 targeting him.
Kim Jong-nam was born from his father’s extra-marital relationship with Sung Hae-rim, a South Korean-born actress who died in Moscow.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was