KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Two women holding foreign passports have been arrested in the killing of the North Korean leader’s estranged half brother who was reportedly poisoned by a pair of female assassins who assaulted him as he waited for a flight this week in Malaysia, police said Thursday.
Investigators are trying to piece together the details of a death that set off a torrent of speculation over whether Kim Jong Un dispatched a hit squad to kill his older sibling, Kim Jong Nam.
The suspects were picked up separately Wednesday and early Thursday and were identified using closed-circuit TV footage from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where Kim Jong Nam suddenly fell ill Monday morning. He died on the way to the hospital.
One of the women had Vietnamese travel documents and the other held an Indonesian passport. There was no immediate way to determine if the IDs were genuine or if the women, both apparently in their 20s, were believed to be the alleged assassins.
A still photo of the airport CCTV video, confirmed as authentic by police, showed one of the suspects in a white T-shirt with “LOL” across the front.