The Malaysian Insight

DEFENCE lawyers in the Kim Jong-nam murder case want four North Koreans listed together in the charge sheet along with Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, the Shah Alam High Court heard this morning on the first day of the trial.

The prosecutors’ team, led by Muhamad Iskandar Ahmad, in its counter-argument, told the court that the names would be revealed during the trial.

Judge Azmi Ariffin, however, concurred with the defence.

“The charge sheet is not clear enough.”

The court stood down for five minutes to allow the judge to decide on the matter.

At 9am, both accused were taken into the courtroom, and the charges were again read to them in Vietnamese and Indonesian by the interpreters.

No plea was recorded. Both nodded as a sign that they understood the charges read to them.

Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan, 28, were charged with the murder of Jong-nam on February 13.

They are accused of committing the offence at klia2 together with four others.

Malaysia was again put under the spotlight following the daylight assassination of Jong-nam, the older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Malaysian authorities revealed that Jong-nam was killed using the VX agent, a contraband poison registered by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

The murder case has put a strain on the Malaysia-North Korea relationship.

Police on March 16 said they had obtained an Interpol Red Notice for the four North Korean men who were at the airport during the murder.

A Red Notice is a request among Interpol’s member states to locate and provisionally arrest a person, pending their extradition. However, North Korea is not a member of the organisation.

Interpol, based in Lyon, France, has posted Red Notices on its website for the four North Koreans, listing each as being wanted by Malaysian authorities for prosecution on murder charges. The four are Ji Hyon Ri and Song Hak Hong, both 32; Jong Gil O, 54; and Jae Nam Ri, 56.

The four were filmed by closed-circuit TV cameras as they observed the assassination unfolding at klia2 on February 13, when Siti Aisyah and Doan accosted Jong-nam in the departure lounge and smeared a deadly nerve agent on his face, according to Malaysian police. – October 2, 2017.