North Korean diplomats, as reported by Free Malaysia Today, are objecting to autopsies on the assassinated half-brother of North Korean strongman, Kim Jong Un.
Kim Jong Nam was killed by two female assassins spraying some supposedly lethal chemical compounds on his face as he awaited to board a plane to Macau. The female suspects are now in custody as is the boyfriend of one of the suspects. They were last reported to be holding Vietnamese and Indonesian passports and moved about using fake aliases.
As intriguing is the request from North Korea for Mr Kim’s body which can only be followed through once the autopsy is completed.
Autopsies are important standard operating procedures concerning any kind of a death in almost all democratic nations. They form part of the regime of accountability aimed at meeting out insurance payouts and for inquest hearings.
The need for an autopsy is to ascertain completely and fully the cause of death and the extent of and impact external, extraneous elements could have played in causing death. Autopsies give detailed information about a person’s health and even if death may have been clear and straightforward it could well be quite probable that the cadaver could have been concealing a hidden, underlying ailment; information that could be vital for family members.
Though the reclusive regime of North Korea may not have been the first nation to run such clandestine programmes – stalinist regimes too, share the same dubious distinction – the regime of Kim Jong Un has been uncharacteristically ruthless in the pursuit of opponents to its regime. From the killing of his uncle to a one-time girlfriend who spurned him, Pyongyang has never ceased to be a thorn in the side of the international community by the needless and reckless launch of missiles and uncalled for nuclear explosions.
In the early 1980s the regime resorted to some uncanny activities by kidnapping Japanese citizens such that they could be indoctrinated and returned to Japan and subsequently, spy for Pyongyang.
Those criminal activities have had left the world shell shocked and deeply troubled.