KUALA LUMPUR: The autopsy report on the murdered Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has been completed.
Health Minister Datuk Seri S. Subramaniam said the report will be handed to the police soon.
Subramaniam said Jong-nam died due to the excessive amount of VX nerve agent wiped on his face by the two female suspects, killing him in less than half an hour.
"The amount of the VX (in Jong-nam's body) was so high that it affected his heart and lung. The absorption level was so rapid. It resulted in him being killed from 15 to 20 minutes upon contraction with the lethal chemical," he told reporters at the Institute for Health Management, Bangsar, here.
Subramaniam said if the next-of-kin fail to show up, the ministry would have to use other methods to ascertain the identity of the deceased.
"We could use dental profiling as well as comparing him to his pictures where we could identify him by the identification marks such as moles."
Dr Subramaniam was speaking to the press after attending the Blueprint Consultative Meeting at the Institute for Health Management here today.
Jong-nam was killed on Feb 13 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 by the VX nerve agent, classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.
Police arrested the first of two suspected female assailants, a 29-year-old woman in possession of a Vietnamese travel document bearing the name Doan Thi Huong at klia2 at 8.20am on Feb 15, and the second suspect, an Indonesian identified as Siti Aishah, 25, on Feb 16.