SHAH ALAM, Malaysia -- Two women accused of smearing a banned nerve agent on the face of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader pleaded innocent as their trial began Monday in the Feb. 13 assassination at a Malaysian airport terminal.
Siti Aisyah of Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam are accused of using VX nerve agent to kill Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur's airport. The women say they thought they were playing a harmless prank for a hidden-camera TV show.
An airport doctor testified that Kim died rapidly, with his blood pressure and pulse first soaring and then plunging.
After the charges were read to the women in their native languages at Malaysia's High Court, they shook their heads "no" when asked whether they were guilty.
The two women are the only suspects in custody in a killing that South Korea's spy agency said was part of a five-year plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to kill a brother he reportedly never met. Police say four North Koreans suspected of involvement left the country on the day of the attack. Three others who holed up inside North Korea's Embassy were allowed to leave in a deal with Pyongyang to ease tensions, despite Malaysia's anger at the public use of a chemical weapon on its territory.
Lawyers for the two women, who face the death penalty if convicted, asked the court to compel prosecutors to identify four people who are still at large and were mentioned in the charge sheet as having a common intention to kill Kim Jong Nam. The judge denied the request.
Four witnesses testified Monday: an airport information counter worker and a police officer who were among the first to interact with Kim after the attack, and a doctor and a nurse who treated him at the airport.
Airport clinic Dr. Nik Mohd Adzrul Ariff Raja Azlan gave a detailed account of Kim's rapid decline.
"When I saw him, his hands were clutching his head. He was closing his eyes tightly, and his face was very red. He was sweating profusely," Nik said, adding that Kim was unable to respond when asked what happened.
Nik said Kim had very high blood pressure and a quickened pulse and started to display seizure symptoms, with his jaw and teeth clenched and his eyes rolling upward.
He said Kim fell unconscious, his blood pressure dropped to 70/40, and then his pulse was lost.
The prosecution phase of the trial is expected to last about two months, after which the judge will decide whether there is a strong case for the women to have to mount their defense, said Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, Huong's lawyer.
Kim, who was 45 or 46, was the eldest son of the family that has ruled North Korea since its founding, yet he reportedly fell out of favor in 2001 when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He had been living abroad for years and at the time of his death was traveling on a North Korean diplomatic passport under the name "Kim Chol."
Aisyah's lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, said before the trial began that her defense will be that she didn't know she had poison on her hand when she smeared Kim's face and that she was instead the victim of an elaborate trick. The 25-year-old was at a pub in Kuala Lumpur in early January when she was recruited by a North Korean man to star in what he said were video prank shows, Gooi said.
Over the course of several days, the North Korean, who went by the name James, had Aisyah go out to malls, hotels and airports and rub oil or pepper sauce on strangers, which he would film on his phone, the lawyer said.
Aisyah was paid $100-$200 for each prank and hoped the income would allow her to stop working as an escort, Gooi said.
A Section on 10/03/2017