SEOUL: South Korea's Ministry of Unification on Tuesday rejected North Korea's claim that Malaysia colluded with Seoul in investigating the death of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
North Korean Ambassador to Malaysia Kang Chol denounced Malaysia's probe results showing that at least five North Korean suspects were allegedly involved in last week's murder of Kim Jong-nam, Yonhap said.
He accused Malaysia of "colluding and playing into the gallery of external forces," in its probe, in an apparent reference to South Korea, it added.
Yonhap said the Ministry of Unification flatly rejected Kang's claim, calling it "preposterous and sophistic".
"The envoy's comment on South Korea is a preposterous claim that is not even worth countering," it quoted a ministry official as saying.
Jong-nam was at the KL International Airport 2 (klia2) at 8am on Feb 13 to board a flight to Macau an hour later when a woman suddenly covered his face with a cloth laced with what is believed to be poison.
He sought help at a customer service counter at the airport and was rushed to the Putrajaya Hospital but died on the way. He had come to Malaysia on Feb 6 and carried a passport with the name of Kim Chol.
Malaysian police have so far arrested two women - one bearing an Indonesian passport with the name Siti Aishah and another who carried a Vietnamese passport with the name Doan Thi Huong - a Malaysian man and a North Korean man.
The police said they were searching for four more North Koreans who fled Malaysia on the day of Jong-nam's death. - BERNAMA