Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, died Monday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and South Korean television reported that he was assassinated.
Once considered the successor to his father, Kim Jong Il, the 45-year-old Kim Jong Nam had been living incognito in exile in Macau, reportedly under the protection of the Chinese government. Although he disavowed any continued interest in the leadership, North Korea watchers invariably raised his name as a potential replacement in the case of a coup d'etat against Kim Jong Un.
Portly like his father and brother, and frequently photographed unshaven with his shirt tails hanging out, Kim was the heir apparent to North Korean leadership until 2001, when he was arrested in Tokyo trying to enter Japan on a false Dominican Republic passport. He told authorities he was trying to bring his son to Tokyo Disneyland.
After his public disgrace, the North Korean regime began grooming Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, who ended up taking over the country while still in his 20s after the 2011 death of the father.
Kim Jong Nam gave occasional interviews to Japanese media. Despite his slovenly appearance and a penchant for drinking and gambling, he was said to be something of an intellectual who expressed his belief in globalization, market economies and the need for North Korea to reform its Communist economy.
"He sees his brother failing," said a Japanese journalist, Yoji Gomi, who released a 2012 book about Kim Jong Nam, "My Father, Kim Jong Il and Me." "He thinks (Kim Jong Un) has a lack of experience. He's too young and he didn't have enough time to be groomed."
Kim Jong Nam was the son of Song Hye-Rim, a North Korean actress who was Kim Jong Il's mistress. The couple never married, reportedly because of fear that the relationship would not be accepted by Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father and North Korea's founder.
As a result, Kim Jong Nam was raised mostly overseas, and Kim Jong Il reportedly believed he had become too westernized. Kim Jong Nam's son, now 21, once posted photographs of himself wearing a cross and has spoken out about humanitarian issues such as human rights and famine in North Korea.
As of Tuesday, Malaysian officials had yet to classify Kim Jong Nam's death as a homicide.
"At the moment, the police classify this case as sudden death. We have to wait for the postmortem report to determine the cause of death," Malaysian Criminal Investigation Department Director Mohmad Salleh was quoted telling reporters in Kuala Lumpur. He said that Kim died on his way to the hospital.
Another Malaysia police official, Fadzil Ahmat, told the Reuters news agency that somebody approached Kim from behind and put something in front of his face.
"We don't know if there was a cloth or needles; the receptionist said someone grabbed his face, he felt dizzy," the official said. Kim was reportedly taken first to an airport clinic and then an ambulance was called.
If an assassination is confirmed, it would be in keeping with the modus operandi of the North Korean regime. Pyongyang has been blamed for numerous attacks against defectors and critics abroad, including the 1974 assassination attempt against South Korean leader Park Chung-hee (whose wife was killed instead) and the 1987 bombing of a Korean airliner by a female North Korean agent.
Kim Jong Nam's first cousin and childhood playmate, a defector, was shot outside his home in South Korea in 1997.
The North Koreans have been implicated in at least one other poison needle attack, in 2011, when a South Korean pastor and activist died mysteriously in China.
"Somebody like Kim Jong Nam who was living overseas must have been aware of the possibility of being assassinated," said Joel Wit, senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "He was originally going to succeed Kim Jong Il. He had been very critical of the regime. He was a focal point for potential opposition. Certainly the North Koreans had plenty of motives."
It is unclear if the half brothers, Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Un, spent any time together or had even met. In any case, Kim Jong Un has been known to be ruthless about potential rivals, even within his own family. His uncle and regent, Jang Sung Taek, was publicly purged and executed in 2013 after the young leader believed he had become too powerful.
In his five years of leadership, Kim Jong Un has resisted calls to reform his economy and has methodically pursued the development of weapons of mass destruction. Since the beginning of last year, North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests and more than two dozen missile tests, the most recent last weekend when an intermediate range missile flew about 300 miles from a launch site northwest of Pyongyang.