Kim Jong-un’s brother’s chilling final moments in airport assassination

Nine years ago, Kim Jong-nam was killed at Kuala Lumpur airport after two women wiped deadly VX nerve agent on his face, believing they were participating in a harmless television prank

Nine years ago today, Kuala Lumpur airport was experiencing a typical hectic day, with passengers and holidaymakers passing through Malaysia’s capital.

Blending in amongst fellow travellers was a middle-aged North Korean gentleman dressed casually in a blue polo shirt and jeans, wandering around the budget airline terminal whilst awaiting his return flight to Macau.

Kim Chol was the alias used by Kim Jong-nam – the alienated half-brother of Kim Jong-un, who had originally been tipped to succeed his father as North Korea’s supreme leader.

Around 9am, Kim lingered near a self-service check-in machine when a woman suddenly approached and smeared an oily liquid across his face before fleeing.

A second woman then appeared, placing her hands over his eyes and dragging them down across his mouth, before offering an apology and vanishing into the crowd, reports the Mirror US.

Kim, already experiencing wooziness and discomfort, located an airport staff member to report what had happened.

He was quickly wheeled away on a stretcher to the airport’s medical facility, where personnel described him as perspiring heavily, unresponsive, and clearly in agony.

Medical staff administered atropine, adrenaline and performed tracheal intubation, but he died rapidly, within thirty minutes of the assault.

A subsequent post-mortem examination would reveal the victim had been poisoned with VX nerve agent, amongst the deadliest chemical weapons in existence – a substance that triggers swift respiratory collapse by inhibiting the acetylcholinesterase enzyme.

In Kim’s case, the chemical had triggered catastrophic failure of his lungs, brain, liver and spleen, alongside pupil constriction and involuntary defecation.

Officials discovered he was carrying approximately US$100,000 in cash and four North Korean passports, all displaying the name Kim Chol, with his true identity only established a month later through DNA matching with his son, Kim Han-sol.

Malaysian authorities swiftly detained two women caught on security cameras – Đoàn Thị Hương, a 28-year-old Vietnamese citizen, and Siti Aisyah, a 25-year-old Indonesian woman.

Both women insisted they believed they were taking part in an innocent television prank, yet faced murder charges carrying Malaysia’s mandatory death penalty.

During their testimony, they described being recruited separately months beforehand by men posing as Japanese, Chinese or South Korean TV producers, who paid them to approach random people in shopping centres or hotels and briefly touch their faces to capture their reactions.

Police enquiries showed Aisyah had carried out similar “pranks” on at least 10 separate occasions, whilst Hương had done so four times, with both women promised US$100 for the airport operation.

Investigators identified the masterminds as North Korean operatives, including one called Ri Ji-u, who appeared in Aisyah’s mobile contacts under the false name “James.”

Following the assault, airport surveillance footage captured the women cleansing their hands in terminal washrooms – behaviour that matched protocols for handling VX contamination.

Prosecutors ultimately acknowledged that the women had genuinely been manipulated as unwitting carriers of the chemical weapon.

Each woman transported a separate harmless element which, when combined, proved fatal.

Several years on, in March 2019, Aisyah’s murder charges were withdrawn after Indonesia’s government intervened.

Hương faced imprisonment but her charges were subsequently downgraded – she admitted guilt to causing harm with dangerous weapons and walked free in May 2019.

Predictably, international diplomatic focus and press scrutiny swiftly shifted towards North Korea, as four North Korean operatives – subsequently confirmed as intelligence officers – were spotted on CCTV departing Malaysia within hours of being near the scene.

The group separated, travelling via Jakarta, Dubai and Vladivostok before arriving in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang.

North Korea refused to acknowledge culpability, however, and insisted Kim had suffered a heart attack.

Malaysian authorities dismissed these assertions and confirmed they were working alongside the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to determine the deadly substance deployed in the assault. Kim Jong-nam had been living in exile from his homeland since 2003, and was vocally opposed to his family’s authoritarian rule.

South Korean intelligence sources revealed that his younger sibling Kim Jong Un had given a permanent kill order against him, and insisted this wasn’t their first assassination attempt.

In 2019, the Wall Street Journal disclosed that Kim Jong-nam had been working as a CIA informant, which strengthened theories that his killing was government-sanctioned.

The murder triggered what remains one of the most serious diplomatic rows in North Korean or Malaysian history to this day.

The Southeast Asian nation scrapped visa-free travel for North Koreans and kicked out their ambassador – whilst Pyongyang prevented Malaysian nationals from departing North Korea.

Tensions subsided when Kim Jong-nam’s remains were handed back to his relatives, as they had requested.

The episode provoked worldwide condemnation, with South Korean officials branding it proof of Kim Jong Un’s “reign of terror,” and America reinstating North Korea as a terrorism sponsor – citing Kim Jong-nam’s murder amongst the justifications for the designation.