Here’s a timeline of the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam and the fraying of once-friendly relations between N. Korea and Malaysia.
A North Korean diplomat on Thursday rejected an autopsy finding that a banned nerve agent killed Kim Jong Nam , the estranged half-brother of the country’s current leader, and suggested he died of heart failure instead.
Ri Tong Il, the former North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations, is leading a delegation to Malaysia’s capital, where the body of Kim Jong Nam is reportedly being held at a morgue while Malaysian authorities investigate the death. During a news conference in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, Ri maintained his country’s refusal to acknowledge that the victim was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ’s half-brother and instead referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport the man was carrying.
Without providing any evidence, Ri said the victim had a history of heart problems and high blood pressure, for which he needed medication and had been hospitalized in the past. He said it didn’t make sense for Malaysian authorities to conclude that two women used such a deadly toxin to kill the North Korean national without also killing or sickening themselves and others around them.
“This is a strong indication that the cause of death is a heart attack,” Ri told reporters.
The ongoing investigation, which centers in part on speculation that Kim Jong Un hired a hit squad to murder his estranged sibling, has become a point of contention between North Korea and Malaysia. Here’s a timeline of the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam and the fraying of once-friendly relations between the two countries.
According to the Royal Malaysia Police, a North Korean man who “sought initial medical assistance” at the customer service counter in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport that day died as he was being transported to the hospital. Police said the 46-year-old man was carrying North Korean travel documents bearing the name Kim Chol with a birth date of June 1970 and birthplace of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The cause of death remains under investigation, police said.
The name on the travel documents, Kim Chol, is the name of another brother of Kim Jong Un, but the birth date matches the reported age of Kim Jong Nam, who is believed to be 45 or 46.
Multiple South Korean media reports, citing unidentified government sources, said two women believed to be North Korean agents killed Kim Jong Nam with some kind of poison before fleeing the scene in a taxi.
As Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong Nam was initially seen as the heir apparent to the late leader of North Korea’s regime. But Kim Jong Nam was pushed out of the succession plan and his younger half-brother, Kim Jong Un, inherited their father’s power.
Kim Jong Nam reportedly fell out of favor after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001. He said he was on his way to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
Two senior Malaysian government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case involves sensitive diplomacy, told The Associated Press on Feb. 14 that the victim was Kim Jong Nam, the estranged older half-brother of North Korea’s leader who had been living overseas for years.
The Malaysian officials said Kim Jong Nam was targeted in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s shopping area before he went through immigration for his flight to Macau, where he is believed to have been living in recent years. They said he told medical workers before he died that he had been attacked at the airport with a chemical spray, the AP reported.
The U. S. State Department told ABC News on Feb. 14 that it was aware of the reports about Kim Jong Nam’s alleged assassination and referred questions to Malaysian authorities. The South Korean embassy in Washington, D. C., said it did not have independent confirmation of the reports but was monitoring media coverage.
On Feb. 15, Malaysian authorities investigating the death arrested a woman carrying Vietnamese travel documents at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where Kim Jong Nam was allegedly attacked. The suspect was alone at the time of the arrest and she was identified using surveillance footage from the airport, according to a statement from the Royal Malaysia Police.
The woman’s travel documents said her name was Doan Thi Huong and was born in May 1998, police said. It’s unclear whether the documents were genuine.
The South Korean Unification Ministry said on Feb. 15 it recognized that the North Korean man who died in Malaysia’s capital was “certainly Kim Jong Nam.” The ministry did not offer further details on the alleged murder.
“The government is certainly judging that the murdered person is certainly Kim Jong Nam,” the ministry’s spokesman, Jeong Joon-hee, said in Korean at a press briefing in Seoul. “The Malaysian government did not specify [that the murdered man is Kim Jong Nam]. Since this case is still being investigated, we should wait for details until the Malaysian government makes an announcement [on details of the murder]. I will only say that the South Korean government will closely cooperate with the Malaysian government. “
South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, told the AP on Feb. 15 that North Korea had been trying for five years to kill Kim Jong Nam, and that he had sent a letter to Kim Jong Un in April 2012, begging for the lives of himself and his family.
On the morning of Feb. 16, Malaysian authorities arrested another woman believed to be involved in the death. The suspect was alone at the time of the arrest and she was carrying an Indonesian passport bearing the name Siti Aishah with a birth date of February 1992 and birthplace of Serang, Indonesia. She was also identified using surveillance footage from the airport, according to a statement from the Royal Malaysia Police.
Malaysian authorities announced a third arrest in the case later that day. The Royal Malaysia Police said in a statement that a Malaysian man, identified as 26-year-old Muhammad Farid Bin Jalaluddin, was arrested to “assist in investigations.
