THE last time Kim Jong Nam made the headlines he was also at an airport, travelling under a false name. In 2001 “Fat Bear”—the Chinese alias used by the son of North Korea’s leader at the time, Kim Jong Il—was arrested after arriving in Tokyo on a forged Dominican Republic passport, on his way to Disneyland. This time it was “Kim Chol” who was waiting for a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Macau on February 13th when two women assumed to be North Korean agents attacked him. He is said to have died on his way to hospital.
As The Economist went to press, the results of an autopsy had not yet been released. Rumours suggest that Mr Kim was poisoned, with a needle, spray or toxic cloth to the face. Malaysian police said they thought six people had been involved in the attack; they have detained two women and one man, travelling on Vietnamese and Indonesian passports.
The 45-year-old Mr Kim had once been Kim Jong Il’s favourite son: witnesses described a 10,000-square-foot playroom filled with toys. Before each birthday, North Korean diplomats would be sent on a month-long hunt for exotic presents. A cousin...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/2ku7Yo0
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment