Malaysia to charge women with Kim murder

KUALA LUMPUR: Two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - will be charged on Wednesday with murder over the killing in Malaysia of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader, Malaysia's attorney general said.

Police have said the women smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical on a U.N. list of weapons of mass destruction, on Kim Jong Nam's face in an assault recorded on security cameras in the Malaysian capital's airport on Feb. 13.

U.S. and South Korean officials believe Kim was the victim of an assassination orchestrated by North Korea. He had been living in exile, under Beijing's protection, in the Chinese territory of Macau, and had criticised the regime of his family and his half-brother Kim Jong Un.

Malaysian police arrested Doan Thi Huong, the Vietnamese woman, and Indonesian Siti Aishah in the days after the attack.

Police are also holding one North Korean man and have identified seven other North Koreans wanted in connection with a case that reads like the plot to a spy movie.

Both women will be formally charged on Wednesday under section 302 of the penal code, which carries the death penalty.

"I can confirm that," Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali told Reuters in a text message.

He said the North Korean in custody would not be charged yet. His remand period ends on Friday.

The security camera footage, which has been released in the media, showed two women assaulting Kim Jong Nam in the departure hall of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and the victim stumbling into a clinic. He died within 20 minutes of the assault.

Both women have told diplomats from their countries that they had been paid to take part in what they believed was a prank for a reality television show.