KUALA LUMPUR: The Indonesian woman who is one of the suspects in the killing of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un’s half brother said she was paid $90 for what she believed was a prank, an Indonesian official said Saturday.
Siti Aisyah also told authorities she did not want her parents to see her in custody, Andriano Erwin, Indonesia’s deputy ambassador to Malaysia, said one day after Malaysia revealed that VX nerve agent was used in the bizarre killing at Kuala Lumpur’s airport.
“She doesn’t want her family get sad to see her condition,” Erwin said after a 30-minute meeting with Aisyah. “She delivered a message through us to her father and mother not to be worried and take care of their health.”
The public poisoning of Kim Jong-nam, which took place February 13 amid crowds of travellers at the airport, appeared to be a well-planned hit. Kim was dead within hours of the attack, in which two women went up behind him and appeared to smear something onto his face.
Aisyah, 25, said previously that she was duped into the attack, but Malaysian police say she and the other female suspect, a Vietnamese woman who also is in custody, knew what they were doing.
The revelation that VX nerve agent killed Kim has boosted speculation that North Korea had dispatched a hit squad to Malaysia to kill Kim, whose younger half-brother is Kim Jong-un.
The thick, oily poison was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, experts say, and is banned under international treaties. North Korea, a prime suspect in the case, never signed that treaty, and has spent decades developing a complex chemical weapons programme.
