Handcuffed, wearing bulletproof vests and under heavily armed guard, the two women accused of murdering the half-brother of North Korea’s leader were yesterday pushed around a Malaysian airport in wheelchairs during a court visit to the crime scene.
Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 28, are charged with murdering Kim Jong-nam by smearing his face with chemical nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur’s budget international terminal on Feb. 13.
The two women were taken back to the scene as part of an entourage of court officials — led by trial judge Azmi Ariffin and accompanied by more than 100 police officers and dozens of journalists — on a visit to retrace the events that unfolded before, during and after Kim’s death.
Photo: Reuters
Defense lawyers requested the visit after video recordings of the women on airport closed-circuit TV were screened in court.
The site visit covered various locations in the terminal shown in the videos, such as a restaurant where Siti Aisyah was seen meeting an unidentified man, the bathrooms where police witnesses said both women had gone to after the attack on Kim, the clinic where the victim sought medical aid and the taxi stands where both suspects were seen after the attack.
Huong appeared unwell midway through the visit, while Siti Aisyah broke down in tears. Both women were then provided wheelchairs.
Footage from Feb. 13 show Huong approaching Kim and grasping his face from behind near the airport’s check-in counters before quickly leaving.
Siti Aisyah could not be seen during the attack, but was identified by a police witness as a figure running in another direction.
The videos also show the women heading to separate bathrooms to wash their hands.
Both women were seen meeting with two men, identified only as Mr Chang and Mr Y, before the attack.
Police said the men had applied liquid on the women’s hands and were among four suspects at large charged together with the women for the murder.
The airport visit comes as the high-profile trial entered its third week. A dozen witnesses have testified so far.
Forensic and chemical weapons experts said that Kim died of nerve agent poisoning, and that VX had been found on Siti Aisyah’s and Huong’s clothes.
Traces of the nerve agent were also found under Huong’s fingernails, the experts said.
Prosecutors have said Siti Aisyah and Huong conspired with four others, who are still at large, to kill Kim.
Defense lawyers have argued that the women did not know that they were handling a lethal substance and that they thought they had been involved in a prank for a reality TV show.
South Korean and US officials have said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime was behind his half-brother’s death.
Kim Jong-nam, who was living in exile in Macau, had criticized his family’s dynastic rule of North Korea and his half-brother had ordered his execution, some South Korean lawmakers have said.
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