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| Kim Jong-Nam (Image: Flickr User - Conecta Abogados) |
Arrest stuns Indonesian family of Kim slaying suspect
JAKARTA: The family and former neighbours of an Indonesian woman implicated in the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother have expressed disbelief that she could commit such a crime, describing her as a "good" and "simple country girl".
News reports that Malaysian police have arrested 25-year-old Siti Aisyah on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Kim Jong-nam on Monday at Kuala Lumpur International Airport have shocked her mother Benah, who said she has been unable to sleep.
"My daughter is not like that. She is just a simple country girl who left her hometown to seek a better life," Benah said by telephone from Ciomas in Banten province, 105 kilometres south of Jakarta.
"I was shocked. I, the whole family, couldn't sleep for the whole night. I felt lifeless and her father keeps praying," she said, while also calling on Malaysian authorities to free her daughter.
Malaysian authorities said on Friday that they would not release Kim's body, despite Pyongyang's request, until his family members provide DNA samples.
Detectives in Kuala Lumpur are trying to get to the bottom of the cloak-and-dagger murder that South Korea says was carried out by poison-wielding female agents working for Pyongyang.
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Rumours fly as more arrests made in Kim killing
KUALA LUMPUR: At a hospital morgue in Malaysia's capital, the tightly guarded corpse of a middle-aged man has become the focus of a dizzying case of international intrigue involving five countries, combative North Korean diplomats and an apparently duped female assassin.
Investigators are still trying to piece together details of what appeared to be the brazen assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea's mercurial ruler and an exiled member of the country's elite. Malaysian police said on Saturday that they had arrested a fourth suspect, a 46-year-old North Korean man.
Kim, who had been estranged from his younger half-sibling for years, was attacked at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday. An overweight man in his mid-40s, he told medical workers at the airport that he had been sprayed in the face with a chemical. He grew dizzy, suffered a seizure and was dead within hours, Malaysian officials said.
Without citing much in the way of evidence, observers including South Korea pointed to the obvious culprit in Monday's attack: Kim's half-brother, Kim Jong-un, who has executed or purged a slew of high-level officials since taking power in 2011.
One rumour suggested that North Korea killed Kim Jong-nam because he planned to create an exile government around defectors. Kim Jong-un was furious after learning about secret Chinese plans to enthrone his estranged sibling in Pyongyang if something happens to him, said another.
Online sleuths have other theories. One of them is that Kim Jong-nam, known for his carefree lifestyle and gambling habits, angered crime organisations over money problems and that got him killed.
Read the full story at BangkokPost