MUST READ!Half-brother of North Korean leader assassinated in Malaysia

MUST READ!Half-brother of North Korean leader assassinated in Malaysia

MAGAZINE
Published February 15,2017
http://magazinereaders.blogspot.com/

North Korean female agents using poisoned needles have assassinated the half-brother of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un in Malaysia, South Korean media reported Tuesday.

Officials in Seoul and Kuala Lumpur could not confirm the death of Kim Jong-Nam, once seen as heir apparent in the North. 

Malaysian police said an unidentified Korean had been taken sick at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and since died.

If confirmed, Kim Jong-Nam's case would be the highest-profile death under the Kim Jong-Un regime since the execution of the leader's uncle Jang Song-Thaek in December 2013.

Kim Jong-Un has been trying to strengthen his grip on power in the face of growing international pressure over his country's nuclear and missile programs. He has reportedly staged a series of executions.

The latest launch on Sunday of a new intermediate-range missile brought UN Security Council condemnation and vows of a strong response from US President Donald Trump. 

South Korea's national news agency Yonhap quoted a source as saying agents of the North's spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, carried out the assassination on Monday by taking advantage of a security loophole between Jong-Nam's bodyguards and Malaysian police at the airport.

The 45-year-old was killed by two unidentified female agents using poisoned needles at the airport, according to South Korean broadcaster TV Chosun.

That report, citing what it called multiple government sources, said the two women hailed a cab and fled immediately afterwards.

In Malaysia, the police chief in charge of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Assistant Commissioner Abdul Aziz Ali, told AFP a Korean in his forties was found sick at the airport on Monday.

Airport authorities rushed him to hospital and he died on the way, the police chief said.

“I cannot reveal that,” he said when asked if the dead person’s name was Kim Jong-Nam.

“The body is in the Putrajaya Hospital. The case is under investigation.”

Kim Jong-Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong-Il, was once seen as heir apparent but fell out of favor following an embarrassing botched attempt in 2001 to enter Japan on a forged passport and visit Disneyland.

He has since lived in virtual exile, mainly in the Chinese territory of Macau.

Jong-Nam's half-brother Jong-Un took over as North Korean leader when their father died in December 2011. 

Jong-Nam, known as an advocate of reform in the North, once told a Japanese newspaper that he opposed his country's dynastic power transfers.

He was reportedly close to his uncle Jang Song-Thaek, once the North's unofficial number two and political mentor of the current leader.

Targeted in the past

Cheong Seong-Jang, senior researcher at Seoul's Sejong Institute think-tank, said Jong-Nam had been living in near-exile so it was unlikely that Jong-Un saw him as a potential competitor for power.

"But if Jong-Nam committed an act to damage Jong-Un's authority, I think it's possible that the Reconnaissance General Bureau may have directly conducted the assassination under the orders of Jong-Un since it has been in charge of closely watching Jong-Nam."

Jong-Nam has been targeted in the past. In October 2012, South Korean prosecutors said a North Korean detained as a spy had admitted involvement in a plot to stage a hit-and-run car accident in China in 2010 targeting Kim Jong-Nam.

In 2014, Jong-Nam was reported to be in Indonesia -- sighted at an Italian restaurant run by a Japanese businessman in Jakarta -- and was said to be shuttling back and forth between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and France.

In 2012, a Moscow newspaper reported that Jong-Nam was having financial problems after being cut off by the Stalinist state for doubting its succession policy.

The Argumenty i Fakty weekly said he was kicked out of a luxury hotel in Macau over a $15,000 debt.

Last year, South Korea warned of possible North Korean assassination attempts in its territory. It noted previous attempts to assassinate Hwang Jang-Yop, the North's chief ideologue and former tutor to Kim Jong-Il, who defected to the South in 1997 and died of natural causes in 2010.

Jong-Nam was born from his father's extra-marital relationship with Sung Hae-rim, a South Korean-born actress who died in Moscow.