SEPANG: Police are zooming in on the identities of four operatives from North Korea who they have reason to believe to have orchestrated the assassination of Kim Jong-nam.
A high-ranking government source said they could have been watching from a close distance as their hitmen — two foreign women — carried out the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at klia2 on Monday morning.
Their front-row view — an eatery, Bibik Heritage, located about 50m away from the crime scene.
The New Straits Times was alerted late last night to the latest development in the investigations into this case. It is understood that police had picked up closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage of three of them at the eatery from 7.30am right up until the attack was carried out.
It is understood that the fourth had been trailing Jong-nam closely as the attack unfolded.
It is also understood that the masterminds had been tracking his movements for about a year to establish his travel pattern, which included flying between Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.
It was also established that Jong-nam was in Singapore recently.
As at press time, Jong-nam’s body is still at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital’s mortuary. The NST learnt that officials from the North Korean embassy, who were there on Wednesday, did not officially identify him as Jong-nam.
It is also understood that while Jong-nam’s DNA samples had been set aside, there had been no samples to work with to match them to him.
“Their contact with the two women was only established not too long ago,” the source said.
The women had since been identified as Siti Aisyah, 25, an Indonesian, and Doan Thi Huong, 29. Thi Huong had in her possession a Vietnamese passport.
Thi Huong was the one who was wearing a white sweater with “LOL” emblazoned across and seen on CCTV pouncing on Jong-nam from behind.
They have since been arrested.
Police yesterday took them to the crime scene to reenact the attack. The area was cordoned off with some 100 police personnel manning the departure hall.
Reacting to news reports that the female assassins carried out the mission thinking it was an innocent prank, the source said police were investigating all angles, including the CCTV footage showing Thi Huong fleeing the scene looking panicky after the attack, which took less than five seconds.
The recording, which suggested that the attack was carried out at 8.59am, showed one of them distracting Jong-nam, allowing the Vietnamese woman to move into a perfect striking position to pounce on, grab the target in a chokehold position and administer the poison.
They then went their separate ways.
The airport’s CCTV footage showed that Thi Huong was ready to board her getaway taxi at 9.26am.
If the women were indeed hired by the men suspected to be from North Korea, it cannot be established how much their fee was. However, the NST spoke to a source who saw Thi Huong with a stack of fresh ringgit bills.
THE MESSY YET SUCCESSFUL ASSASSINATION PLAN
The CCTV footage of Thi Huong’s movements showed that she reached Sky Star Hotel here about 10 minutes after she hopped into the taxi. She was wearing the same outfit when she committed the murder.
She had been staying at two different hotels before that.
On Feb 11, Thi Huong had checked into Room 306 at the nearby
Qlassic Hotel. She had wanted to
extend her stay there, but there were no vacancies.
She then moved to the one on the adjacent block — City View Hotel. It was also pointed out that when she checked into City View Hotel about 2pm, she had with her a sizeable number of heavy bags. She only took with her a small carry-on and a sling bag. It had not been established who they belonged to or what happened to them.
It was at this hotel’s Room 209 on Feb 12 that she might have been asked to alter her look to prepare herself for the job. She borrowed a pair of scissors from the hotel.
When she left her room about 6am the next day to head for klia2 for the job — sporting the new mid-length bob haircut — she left her chopped locks strewn on the floor in the room.
She arrived in Bandar Salak Tinggi, where the hotels were located, and headed straight to Sky Star Hotel. She tried out the WiFi connection and when she was happy with it, she walked over to City View Hotel to bring over her belongings.
Sky Star Hotel supervisor F. Jagen, 41, told the NST that he recalled seeing her anxious and was constantly wiping her left hand as he attended to her at the counter. The NST had published a CCTV footage of Thi Huong making her escape from the airport with her left hand covered in what appeared to be a brown rubber glove. She had the hand extended away from her.
This employee also noticed that she had taken out several RM50 notes from a thick stack of bills to pay for the deposit.
The employee also revealed that she was supposed to stay at the hotel until Feb 23. Police caught her on the morning of Feb 15 in klia2.
“That night was the only time she was seen wearing a mask (surgical)... she was headed for dinner.”
It remains unclear why she was there as she neither had her ticket out of the country nor her passport with her.
When police took her back to Room 401 where she had been staying, they found a powdered substance, which they suspect could be the poison used to kill Jong-nam.
There was one common thing that employees of all three hotels the NST spoke to noticed.
This assassin, who is around 165cm tall, was, at all times, seen holding on tightly to a teddy bear that was about half her height. The NST secured a picture of the actual teddy with the promise that it was to be reproduced.
They also said, not once did she ask for the reception to assist her with her transportation arrangements.
They claimed that she looked more Korean than Vietnamese.
Meanwhile, another source said while the two women knew each other, they were only seen together at the crime scene as they mounted the deadly strike on Jong-nam.
The Indonesian assassin had stayed at the Flamingo Hotel in Ampang, where she was also arrested at 2am on Thursday. Additional reporting by Faisal Asyraf