Kim Jong Nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was killed at a Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13.
A TV screen shows pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his older brother Kim Jong Nam, left, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017. AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
Kim Jong-Nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, was killed on February 13.
When news of a man getting fatally poisoned at a Kuala Lumpur airport first broke, the event caused a local stir but received relatively little attention worldwide.
Once Jong-Nam’s identity surfaced a day later, interest into the mysterious death of the man who had reportedly fallen out of favour with his family and the dictatorial North Korean government became widespread.
With investigation developments coming up daily, this is what we know about the strange death so far.
Jong-Nam, the exiled half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was waiting for a flight to Macau at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia on Feb. 13 when two women ran up to him from behind and appeared to spray an unidentified liquid on him.
He soon started feeling dizzy, collapsed, and died before the ambulance carrying him made it to the hospital. Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV released a CCTV video that captured the attack.
The next day , S outh Korean television broadcaster TV Chosun reported that the two women suspected of killing Kim Jong-Nam were North Korean operatives who fled the airport in a taxi .
On Feb. 15 , South Korean government officials confirmed the death and said that North Korea’s government had been planning to kill him for the past 5 years.
Kim Jong-Nam is the son of deceased North Korea leader Kim Jong-Il and North Korean actress Song Hye Rim. As Jong-il’s illegitimate son, Jong-Nam spent an early part of his childhood living in secret with his mother’s relatives in Pyongyang before leaving North Korea to study in top schools in Moscow and Geneva.
Because Kim Jong-Il’s father (self-proclaimed Eternal President of the Republic Kim Il-sung) did not approve of his son’s frequent mistresses, Kim Jong-Nam’s maternal relatives arranged for the son to live in secret for years before coming back to North Korea.
Upon return, Kim Jong-Nam joined the Ministry of People’s Security and worked to bring restricted internet access to the country in the 1990s.
