Kim Jong Nam: Al Jazeera investigates murder that shocked the world
Insiders tell international TV network how Kim Jong Un considered his half-brother such a threat that he had to be killed, in programme that airs tomorrow.
PETALING JAYA: No one but North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un could have ordered the assassination of his estranged older brother Jong Nam, Al Jazeera uncovered in its own investigation into the killing which took place in Malaysia earlier this year.
In an interview with current affairs programme 101 East, Kim Dong Shik, a former North Korean spy who defected after he was shot during a mission in South Korea, said there is no doubt in his mind that the assassination would have been a direct order from the very top.
“There is only one person who can give that kind of order and it’s Kim Jong Un, it was definitely him,” Dong Shik told reporter Mary Ann Jolley.
101 East carried out interviews with a number of North Korean defectors, former spies and other insiders, before piecing together a portrait of a brutal leader who will stop at nothing – even killing his own relatives – to maintain his iron grip on power.
These insiders told the international TV network how Kim Jong Un considered his half-brother such a threat that he had to be killed in a brazen assassination that sparked a fierce diplomatic storm between Malaysia and North Korea.
Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, was killed in an attack at Malaysia’s low-cost carrier airport, klia2, at about 9am on Feb 13. He was scheduled to take a flight to Macau later that morning.
Two women, a Vietnamese and an Indonesian, who allegedly wiped his face with a substance identified from an autopsy as the banned deadly VX nerve agent, were charged with murder on March 1. Jong Nam died within 20 minutes of the attack.
Four other male suspects, all North Korean, fled the country on the same day of the murder.
“The murder shocked the world and exposed the inner workings of one of the world’s most secretive states.
“It was clear there was a much bigger story to be told,” Jolley said of the interviews which pulled back the layers of secrecy and paranoia that cloak North Korea’s ruling family to reveal what lay at the heart of this sensational murder.
101 East also managed to land an exclusive interview with North Korea’s highest profile defector, the former deputy ambassador to the UK, who tells 101 East why Kim Jong Nam was high on the leader’s hit list.
“According to Kim Jong Un or the North Korean regime, Kim Jong Nam was a kind of physical hurdle which should be eliminated sooner or later,” said Thae Yong Ho, who fled his post less than a year ago and is now under the protection of South Korea’s intelligence agency.
“North Korea: The Death of Kim Jong Nam” premieres on Al Jazeera English tomorrow morning at 6.30am on 101 East, with a repeat screening at 5.30pm. There will be further repeats on Saturday (April 30, 11.30am) and Monday (May 1, 12.30am and 1.30pm).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5Or5DkN_1g
Kim Jong Nam murder: CCTV footage now on YouTube
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