Two female secret agents behind murder of Kim Jong-un's brother

Two female secret agents were behind the murder of Kim Jong-un's brother in Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian police has told the Telegraph, after the arrest of a taxi driver who picked them up from the airport.

کد خبر: ۶۶۷۶۳۹

تاریخ: ۲۷ بهمن ۱۳۹۵ - ۰۹:۴۱

Telegraph - Two female secret agents were behind the murder of Kim Jong-un's brother in Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian police has told the Telegraph, after the arrest of a taxi driver who picked them up from the airport.

Kim Jong-nam, 45, died on Monday after collapsing at Kuala Lumpur International Airport while waiting to board a flight back to Macau, where he was living in exile.

The arrest of the taxi driver, who is in his 30s, was made soon after CCTV footage had been analysed and police were now searching for the two women.

"We have already looked through the CCTV footage, hence we managed to arrest the taxi driver who had taken the two woman who carried out the assassination," said the senior police official who asked not to be named.

Based on the statement of the taxi driver and the CCTV footage, he said police believed the two woman were Vietnamese.

They were thought to be agents of a foreign country, he said, refusing to speculate if they were hired by Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, who is suspected of ordering the murder.

He added that Malaysian police were searching for the two suspected Vietnamese agents and believed they were still in the country.

The North Korean government has sent a senior diplomat to Malaysia, the officer stated, and asked that a post mortem examination of the body does not take place. The request was denied.

Lawmakers in Seoul had said earlier that South Korea's spy agency suspects two female North Korean agents assassinated Mr Kim.

South Korean intelligence believed he was poisoned, lawmakers said after being briefed by the country's spy agency.

They said the spy agency told them the young, unpredictable North Korean leader had issued a "standing order" for his half-brother's assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.

According to the spy agency, Mr Kim had been living with his second wife in the Chinese territory of Macau, under Beijing's protection, the lawmakers said. One of them said he also had a wife and son in Beijing.

"If the murder of Kim Jong Nam was confirmed to be committed by the North Korean regime, that would clearly depict the brutality and inhumanity of the Kim Jong Un regime," South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, the country's acting president, told a security council meeting.

Police were still investigating what caused the death.

Mr Kim, who had frequently spoken out against his brother's dictatorship, said he was in "extreme pain" having been sprayed in the face with an unidentified liquid as he waited to board a flight in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian police said on Tuesday.

Unnamed South Korean government officials had earlier stated that two female North Korean agents stabbed him with a "poisoned needle".

Mr Kim, the son of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was once tipped to succeed his father but publicly criticised his family's dynastic control of the isolated state.

He also fell out of favour when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.