This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/19/malaysian-police-looking-for-four-people-in-kim-jong-nam-investigation
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Version 0 | Version 1 |
---|---|
Malaysian police looking for four North Koreans over Kim Jong-nam killing | Malaysian police looking for four North Koreans over Kim Jong-nam killing |
(about 4 hours later) | |
Investigators are looking for four North Korean men who flew out of Malaysia the same day Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, was poisoned at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, according to Malaysian police. | |
Since Kim’s death last week, authorities have been trying to piece together details of what appeared to be an assassination. Malaysian police have so far arrested four people carrying IDs from North Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. | |
One of those in custody, an Indonesian woman, told investigators she was duped into thinking she was part of a TV comedy show prank. | |
On Sunday, Malaysia’s deputy national police chief, Noor Rashid Ibrahim, said four more suspects were on the run. He said the men were North Korean and had flown out of the country last Monday, when Kim died. | |
“I am not going disclose where they are,” he told journalists, adding that Interpol was helping with the investigation. | |
Noor Rashid showed photographs of the four men, who were travelling on regular, rather than diplomatic, passports and were aged 33, 34, 55 and 57. He said there was a fifth North Korean man whom authorities wanted to question. | |
Kim was waiting for his flight home to Macau when, authorities say, he was attacked by two women. He sought help at a customer service desk, saying that two unidentified women had swabbed or wiped his face with a liquid and that he felt dizzy, Noor Rashid said on Sunday. | |
Kim died on the way to hospital after having a seizure, officials say. | |
Noor Rashid said he expected the postmortem results to be released within days. “We have to send a sample to the chemistry department, we have to send a sample for toxicology tests,” he said. | |
Investigators also want to speak to Kim’s next of kin to formally identify the body. He is believed to have two sons and a daughter with two women, one living in Beijing and the other in Macau. | |
“We haven’t met the next of kin,” Noor Rashid said. “We are trying very hard to get the next of kin to come and to assist us in the investigation.” | |
The case has raised tensions between Malaysia and North Korea. Pyongyang demanded custody of Kim’s body and strongly objected to a postmortem. The Malaysians went ahead anyway, saying they were simply following procedure. | |
Kang Chol, North Korea’s ambassador to Malaysia, said Malaysia may be “trying to conceal something” and that the postmortem was carried out “unilaterally and excluding our attendance”. | |
South Korea has been quick to blame its enemies in the North for Kim’s death. | |
“Considering North Korea has so far committed crimes against humanity and terror acts, we, together with the international community, are closely watching this brutal, reckless incident with serious concerns,” its unification ministry spokesman, Jeong Joon-hee, told reporters. |