North Korea’s state media broke a 10-day silence Thursday on the murder of Kim Jong-Un’s half brother, launching a ferocious…
SEOUL —
North Korea’s state media broke a 10-day silence Thursday on the murder of Kim Jong-Un’s half brother, launching a ferocious assault on Malaysia for “immoral” handling of the case and for playing politics with the corpse.
In its first comments on the airport assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, KCNA said Malaysia bore responsibility for the death, and accused it of conspiring with South Korea.
“Malaysia is obliged to hand his body to the DPRK (North Korea) side as it made an autopsy and forensic examination of it in an illegal and immoral manner”, the North’s Korean Jurists Committee said, in comments carried by the state-run news agency.
Malaysia has not released the corpse “under the absurd pretext” that it needs a DNA sample from the dead man’s family, it said in a lengthy statement that never identified the victim.
“This proves that the Malaysian side is going to politicize the transfer of the body in utter disregard of international law and morality and thus attain a sinister purpose,” it said.
Malaysia is holding four people—a North Korean man, a Malaysian, and women from Indonesia and Vietnam—over the February 13 attack on Kim Jong-Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport as he waited for a flight to Macau.
Leaked CCTV footage shows the portly Kim being approached by two women who appear to put something in his face.
