The trial of two women accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam continued on Thursday. The prosecution showed the CCTV footage of four men suspected of orchestrating the assassination, Reuters reported.
The four men, suspected to be North Korean agents, allegedly got the two women – Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam – to smear Kim with the nerve agent VX at a terminal of the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia, leading to his death within minutes.
The two women, who were arrested a few days after the assassination and face death by hanging if convicted, have pleaded not guilty. They maintain that they were tricked into believing they were taking part in a prank for a reality television show. However, according to prosecutors, Aisyah and Huong conspired with the men to murder Kim Jong-nam.
The four suspects were known to the women by pseudonyms - Mr Y, Mr Chang, Hanamori and James, AFP reported. “Hanamori played the role of the mastermind of this incident,” Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz, the main investigating officer, told the court on Thursday.
The men changed clothes before they were seen leaving the airport after the attack, Azzi added. The CCTV footage, according to Reuters, showed Mr Chang and Mr Y walking towards different bathrooms in the airport before emerging in different outfits after the assassination was carried out. Mr Chang, who was sporting a goatee, came out of the bathroom clean-shaven.
Mr Chang and Mr Y then met a man, suspected to be Hanamori, at a restaurant near the airport’s check-in counters before the attack was carried out.
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