SEOUL, South Korea—He seemed like an ordinary passenger in the departure hall of the airport for Malaysia’s capital, awaiting a four-hour flight to Macau. Moments later, he felt dizzy and was carried out on a stretcher, apparently dying from poisoned-needle punctures or, perhaps, a toxic liquid splashed on his face by two women who ran away.
The ruckus caused by the man’s death on Monday at the international airport for Kuala Lumpur was minor news until a thunderbolt from the South Korean and Malaysian news media a day later: The victim was Kim Jong Nam, 45, the estranged older half brother of Kim Jong Un, the unpredictable and ruthless leader of North Korea.
The death immediately turned into an international assassination intrigue connected to the opaque regime of the Kim family, which has ruled North Korea for more than 60 years.
It came as Kim Jong Un, 33, who has ordered scores of subordinates executed if he questioned their fealty, has further shaken up the ranks of his closest aides, purging the chief of the secret police less than two weeks ago.
In addition, Kim Jong Un has stoked a new international crisis with a ballistic missile launching and threats of more nuclear-weapons tests.
The South Korean news channel TV Chosun said two women had stabbed Kim Jong Nam with poisoned needles and fled in a taxi and that the local police were searching for them.
The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, quoted the police as saying the victim had sought help from a departure hall receptionist after someone “grabbed him from behind and splashed liquid on his face.”
He died as medics rushed him to a hospital.
Political experts on North Korea’s politics immediately speculated that Kim Jong Un had ordered the assassination of his older half sibling, who at one time had been the heir apparent and had been favored by China, the country’s ally and principal benefactor.
“Maybe Kim Jong Nam was about to do something drastic that would either compromise the regime or the family,” said Jae H. Ku, director of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “By the nature of things in North Korea, the fact that he is in the bloodline represented a threat.”
Others were even more emphatic in their suspicion that Kim Jong Un had been responsible, partly because Kim Jong Nam had been publicly critical of the transfer of power that made Kim Jong Un the top leader after the death of their father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011.
“The apparent murder today of Kim Jong Nam in Malaysia by agents of his brother is the latest explosive turn in Pyongyang’s vicious palace intrigue,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist who specializes in North and South Korea at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “The question remains: Do these deadly measures secure his rule or serve to undermine it?”
There also was speculation that Kim Jong Un might have ordered Kim Jong Nam killed because China might have been planning to support him as a replacement for Kim Jong Un, who has angered Chinese leaders with his provocative weapons and missile tests.
“Kim Jong Nam reportedly has been Beijing’s favorite, which may mean one day the Chinese Communist Party may overthrow Kim Jong Un and install Kim Jong Nam,” said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
The Royal Malaysia Police identified the dead man as Kim Chol, an alias that South Korean officials said had been used by Kim Jong Nam. A police statement said the cause of death was under investigation.
In Seoul on Wednesday, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is serving as acting president during the impeachment trial of President Park Geun-hye, called a meeting of security-related Cabinet ministers and urged his government to work closely with the Malaysian authorities to help uncover who killed Kim Jong Nam.
“If he was killed by the Kim Jong Un regime, it will be an example of its cruelty and inhumaneness,” Hwang said. North Korea’s state-run media has said nothing about the reports.
Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, had been widely considered next in line to succeed him until 2001, when he was caught trying to take his son to Tokyo Disneyland with a fake visa.
He was detained for several days, then deported to China.
Other analysts in South Korea say Kim Jong Nam fell out of the succession race after his mother, Sung Hae Rim, was rejected by the North Korean leader, who favored Kim Jong Un’s mother, Ko Young Hee.
Ko and Kim Jong Il had another son, Kim Jong Chol, who was seen at an Eric Clapton concert in London in 2015.
North Korea began grooming Kim Jong Un as heir after his father had a stroke in 2008. As his youngest brother consolidated power, Kim Jong Nam lived in semi-exile abroad. Until recently, he had sometimes been seen in Macau. TV Chosun said he had also been visiting Singapore and Malaysia, where he had girlfriends.
Image credits: AP/Shizuo Kambayashi