As judge prepares key ruling, Siti Aisyah’s mother recounts her daughter’s journey from aspiring TV star to suspected tool of North Korean regime
I n the beginning, there were a few times that Benah pretended not to know her daughter, Siti Aisyah. She just couldn’t face the questions.
One day while Benah was visiting the doctor in town the receptionist recognised the name of her sleepy Javanese village, Rancasumur – a name popularised by the nightly news. “How far away is your house from Siti’s?” the receptionist asked, leaning in conspiratorially. “Oh, it’s far,” replied Benah, “I don’t even know her.”
But at home, away from prying strangers and gossipy neighbours, the Indonesian mother could hardly sleep – the claim that her daughter had assassinated Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was all too horrifying and surreal.
In 2017 Siti, 26, and a Vietnamese woman, Doan Thi Huong, 30, were charged with murder, accused of smearing a lethal VX nerve agent over Kim Jong-nam’s face in Kuala Lumpur airport on 13 February.
Estranged from his younger half brother, Kim Jong-nam had spent the past decade in exile, critical of the regime he was once tipped to run. His death sparked allegations that Pyongyang had engineered an offshore political assassination – an accusation North Korea has denied. Four North Koreans are still wanted over the attack, which led to a diplomatic stand-off between North Korea and Malaysia and refocused attention on one of the world’s most isolated regimes with nuclear capabilities. Phone calls from prison
Eighteen months later, Benah is praying it will all soon be over.
In regular phone calls from prison, Siti tells her mother they were tricked into believing they were taking part in a prank TV show. Benah explains: “She told me: ‘Mum this whole thing is a set up, I was tricked’.” Lawyers say the pair had been paid to take part in similar pranks at airports, hotels and shopping malls in the days before Kim’s death.
Siti’s lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, is confident she will be released, arguing the evidence is circumstantial. No witnesses saw his client attack Kim, the CCTV footage did not conclusively show she did, and no traces of VX nerve agent were found on her, he says.
