The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
KUALA LUMPUR / AP
Investigators are looking for four North Korean men who flew out of Malaysia the same day Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean ruler’s outcast half brother, apparently was poisoned at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian police said on Sunday.
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 the suspects in custody, an Indonesian woman, told investigators that she was duped into thinking she was part of a 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 a room packed with journalists, adding that Interpol was helping with the investigation.
Noor Rashid showed photographs of the four men, who were traveling on regular — not diplomatic — passports and are ages 33, 34, 55 and 57.
He also said there were three other people police wanted to question. He said one was North Korean, but that police had not yet identified the other two. It wasn’t clear if they were suspects or simply wanted for questioning.
A rotund man in his mid-40s, Kim Jong Nam was waiting for his flight home to Macau when, authorities say, he was set upon by two women. He sought help at a customer service desk and said “two unidentified women had swabbed or had wiped his face with a liquid and that he felt dizzy,” Noor Rashid said Sunday.
Kim died en route to a hospital after suffering a seizure, officials say.
Noor Rashid said on Sunday that he expected autopsy 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 Jong Nam’s next of kin to formally identify the body. He is believed to have two sons and a daughter with two women living in Beijing and Macau.