Witness at Malaysia trial says 4 more suspects in Kim murder

FILE: Kim Jong-nam (Photo: Doyle Industries/Facebook)

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia _ A Malaysian police officer testified Thursday that the two women on trial for the murder of the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader were seen on airport security videos with two men believed to have provided the VX nerve agent used to kill him.

Video footage presented in court showed Vietnamese suspect Doan Thi Huong walking in the airport with a man who wore a baseball cap. Separately, Indonesian suspect Siti Aisyah was seen meeting with another man at an airport cafe just before the attack was carried out in a crowded departure terminal of the Kuala Lumpur airport the morning of Feb. 13.

The men’s faces can’t be seen clearly.

Chief investigating officer Wan Azirul Niz Che Wan Aziz identified the men as only Mr. Y and Mr. Chang.

He testified the two men were believed to have smeared VX nerve agent on the women’s hands before the pair smeared the oily substance on Kim Jong Nam’s face.

Wan Azirul said the two men are among four people at large whom prosecutors accuse of having the common intention with the two women to murder Kim.

He named the two other at-large suspects as James, the suspected recruiter of Aisyah, and Hanamori, who is nicknamed grandpa or uncle and who is suspected of giving directions to Mr. Y.

Huong and Aisyah are the only two suspects detained in the brazen assassination of Kim, an outcast from North Korea’s ruling family who lived abroad in virtual exile for years. Both women have pleaded not guilty to murder charges that carry mandatory death sentences if they are convicted.

Their defence lawyers have said Huong and Aisyah were duped by suspected North Korean agents into believing they were playing a harmless prank for a TV show. But prosecutors have said the women knew they were handling poison, and Wan Azirul testified earlier that they raised their hands carefully to avoid contact with the substance and washed it off after attacking Kim.