KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA — News of the apparent assassination of the North Korean leader’s estranged half-brother in Malaysia has made global headlines.
Now, more and more information is coming out about the women suspected of poisoning him before a scheduled flight to Macau. One of these women is Indonesian national, Siti Aisyah.
Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry says Aiysah is 25 years old, from Serang city in far-western Java, and holds a passport issues in West Java.
In 2009, while working at a clothing factor in Jakarta, she married her boss and the pair had a son. Three years later, they divorced, after she began an affair with another man.
Kim’s killing was was originally thought to be the work of North Korean agents. Yet her former father-in-law told reporters that she is a simple shopkeeper who cannot speak English. Not the profile of someone likely to have knowingly been involved in an international assassination plot.
Media have speculated she was an unwitting tool of the North Korean state. Under questioning, Aiysah claimed that a man in a nightclub who claimed to work for a TV prank show, had offered her $100 to take part in a prank on a man at an airport. That man, of course, would be Kim Jong Nam.
After the event, Siti and her boyfriend escape by taxi. After reviewing security camera footage, Malaysian police arrested her just after midnight on February 16.
The investigation is ongoing.
