The US based Wall Street Journal or WSJ today told the story of what it says how the hit squad that attacked and probably caused the death of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader met in Kuala Lumpur.
The article by WSJ reveals a few new elements, that took place before and after the attack, it also tells us more on what probably happened.
WSJ said the hit squad assembled in KL quickly from three countries and practiced at least twice at posh shopping malls before executing their brazen assault against the lone figure at the airport.
The newspaper said these are the elements in the attack that have raised suspicions in South Korea and Malaysia leading to the theory that North Korea is behind the attack.
South Korea was the first nation to say that the killing last week of Kim Jong Nam, was a well-orchestrated plot directed from Pyongyang.
It cited its own spy agency which was apparently ahead of the Malaysian local agencies in deciphering what had happened.
Breaking in at morgue
In between the confusion, Malaysia managed to point out that an official at the North Korean Embassy and an employee of the country’s state-owned airline was identified by police on Wednesday as among the seven suspects still at large.
Malaysian police also said someone tried to break into the morgue where the body is being kept, leading to a tightening of security at the hospital.
KLCC trials
On the two women arrested and the claims that they were told they would be participating in a ‘gag for laugh’ show at the budget airport at the KLIA2, the local police said the two women and the North Koreans suspects had rehearsed the operation at two upscale malls, one being the Kuala Lumpur City Center or KLCC.
One of the women, 28-year-old Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam, was lodging near the airport with a giant teddy bear that she had carried from hotel to hotel, witnesses said.
The other, Siti Aisyah of Indonesia, had just celebrated her 25th birthday with friends at the Hard Rock Cafe here, one friend told The Wall Street Journal.
Images found on Doan Thi Huong’s Facebook page include a giant teddy bear and a portrait where she appears to be wearing a LOL shirt.
The night before the killing, she hadn’t been feeling well, she told her mother in Indonesia by phone.
On the day of Kim death, the group reassembled at the airport terminal.
Four North Korean male suspects sat with Huong in a cafe, chatting in a mix of Malay and English, an airport worker told the Journal.
Several associates moved around nearby, including Aisyah, who sat with a young Malaysian caterer who police said was her boyfriend, WSJ reported.
Just before 9 a.m, Kim arrived to catch a 10:50 a.m. AirAsia flight to Macau.
Huong and Aisyah applied a toxic cream or liquid to their bare hands, police said, and moved into position.
The next sequence has been viewed millions of times in a surveillance video posted on YouTube and news sites around the world, in which the two women are seen applying the substances separately on Kim’s face.
South Korea’s spy chief has described Kim’s death as the fulfillment of his half-brother Kim Jong Un’s assassination order.
This, and the autopsy carried out by Malaysia, along with Kuala Lumpur’s refusal to release the body of Kim has vexed the North Koreans.
Malaysian authorities are trying to determine why Kim visited the country on Feb. 6, arriving on a North Korean passport with the fake name Kim Chol.
It was not the first time Kim came on such a trip, as he often stayed near the North Korean Embassy, until 2013, when the ambassador, a friend, was recalled to North Korea and executed.
Investigators have struggled to assess the scale of the alleged plot, says WSJ.
“We looked through everything, the trash, too,” one officer said. Complicating the matter, the security camera closest to the assault wasn’t working at the time of the assault and the others captured events unclearly.