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Kim Jong-Un's Half-Brother Reportedly Killed in Malaysia

posted by on Wednesday February 15 2017, @09:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the conspiracy! dept.

Kim Jong-un's Half-Brother Reportedly Killed in Malaysia

takyon writes:

Kim Jong-un's estranged half-brother has reportedly been killed:

The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been killed in Malaysia, South Korean and Malaysian sources say. Kim Jong-nam, 45, is said to have been targeted at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, the capital. A source close to the Malaysian PM's office told the BBC that Mr Kim was killed in the city, saying his body was now undergoing an autopsy.

Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Also at Bloomberg, NYT, Reuters, and DW.

Eldest Son of Former North Korean Dictator Assassinated

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

In a story filed at 23:22 GMT 2017-02-14, China-based SINA reports

[...] South Korea's TV Chosun, a cable television network, said that Kim was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two women believed to be North Korean operatives, who were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.

However, Selangor Police chief Abdul Samah Mat was reported to have said that a woman had approached Kim Jong-nam at the airport departure lounge and covered the victim's head with a cloth which contained an unidentified liquid.

[...] In 2001, Kim Jong-nam was caught at an airport in Japan traveling on a fake passport, saying he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

He was known to travel to Hong Kong, Macao and the Chinese mainland. He said several times over the years that he had no interest in leading his country.

Numerous North Koreans of influence who were suspected of less than total loyalty to the regime have been killed, apparently at the order his brother, the dictator. It appears that this latest death was simply tying up a loose end.

Earlier reports of poisoned needles or sprayed poison appear to lack credibility.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

 
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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:41PM

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:41PM (#467636)
    The killer could have worn gloves, I suppose, but the claimed use of a "mask" (or more likely a cloth) over the face does imply inhalation or ingestion was required rather than contact, which is indeed a strange choice that would seem more likely to fail than, say, something where skin contact was enough. Then again, there are lots of sensitive membranes in the nose and throat, so maybe they were just tring to improve the odds of getting it into the blood stream or triggering anaphylactic shock through something like a severe peanut allergy while using a lower concentration of whatever it was?

    I guess we'll have a better idea when the results of the autopsy inevitably get made public, and I can't help but wonder how well alleged DPRK assassins do under interrogation when faced with a choice between a trail with a mandatory hanging if found guilty or some kind of "deal".
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:49PM

    by VLM (445) on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:49PM (#467639)

    autopsy

    Won't that be fun... I just realized if they find nothing, it could be some top secret military stuff or lets face it, fat old bastard you know you're a dead man walking for political reasons, two agents sneak up on you and slap a towel with some perfume from her purse on it and they literally scare you to death into a massive heart attack. A week later some poor Dr get stuck trying to find the "missing poison", which is missing because there isn't one.

    OMG I'm under attack oh no, is this what nerve gas smells like? panic panic panic panic fall over dead

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:32PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:32PM (#467649)

      Put cloth over face, he reaches up to remove, needle-stab him in the genetically-enhanced posterior.
      Enjoy as doctors and the CIA are puzzled not to find traces in the lungs.

    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:52PM

      by zocalo (302) on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:52PM (#467661)
      I'd have thought an autopsy would be more along the lines of "what can we definitively establish about how this person died?" rather than "this person may have been poisoned, so let's concentrate on the search for toxins". Obviously in this particular instance I dare say they'll be careful to be very thorough on the toxicology side of things (and will probably get some "specialist help"), but ultimately an autopsy is a process that is more or less the same regardless of the cause of death; you always check *everything*, then see what cause(s) of death correlate most closely with your findings. If it's something classified, then even if the toxicology report just comes back with something like "Chemical analysis matched a known toxin (details classified) in lethal quantities." with a referral to a classified report, that's still good enough for a cause of death.
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @07:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @07:59AM (#467741)

      Malaysia has decent political and economic ties with North Korea so don't be surprised if they find nothing:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia%E2%80%93North_Korea_relations [wikipedia.org]

      A Malaysian "university" even gave Kim Jong Un an honorary doctorate:
      http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2013/10/23/help-uni-kim-jong-un-phd/ [thestar.com.my]

      It's not like Malaysia has a good track record for such stuff: http://www.sarawakreport.org/2015/12/how-ags-office-connived-to-prevent-a-second-post-mortem-on-kevin-morias-exclusive-expose/ [sarawakreport.org]