North Korea lashes Malaysia over Kim assassination as South blasts news of his death

SEOUL // North Korea’s state media broke a 10-day silence on Thursday on the murder of Kim Jong-un’s half brother, launching a ferocious assault on Malaysia for “immoral” handling of the case and for playing politics with the corpse.

In its first comments on the airport assassination of Kim Jong-nam, KCNA said Malaysia bore responsibility for the death, and accused it of conspiring with South Korea.

“Malaysia is obliged to hand his body to the DPRK [North Korea] side as it made an autopsy and forensic examination of it in an illegal and immoral manner”, the North’s jurists committee said, in comments carried by the state-run news agency.

Malaysia has not released the corpse “under the absurd pretext” that it needs a DNA sample from the dead man’s family, it said.

“This proves that the Malaysian side is going to politicise the transfer of the body in utter disregard of international law and morality and thus attain a sinister purpose,” it said.

Throughout its lengthy dispatch, KCNA avoided any reference to the dead man’s identity, calling him only “a citizen of the DPRK bearing a diplomatic passport”.

South Korea is reportedly using giant loudspeakers to blast news of Kim’s dramatic assassination across the border with its reclusive northern neighbour.

Kim — once believed to be the likely heir the North’s late leader Kim Jong-il — died on February 13 after being attacked by two women at a Kuala Lumpur airport in what is suspected to be a murder planned by Pyongyang.

Although the North’s state media did not identify the victim in its scathing denouncement of the Malaysian investigation on Thursday, the South this week employed its banks of high-decibel loudspeakers to ensure details of the death of Kim, reverberated through wide swathes of the border area, Seoul’s MBC TV station said.

“Kim Jong-nam ... died after being attacked by two unidentified women at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia,” blared the message from the speakers and replayed by the TV station.

“Malaysian authorities said four suspects are North Korean nationals including one who has been arrested,” it said.

News of the outside world is heavily restricted and censored in the North under the Kim family, which has ruled for decades with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.

The South Korean military has for years blasted a mix of world news, propaganda messages and K-pop songs across the border using dozens of loudspeakers, which targets soldiers in the isolated state. They have a range of around 10 kilometres.

Malaysian detectives are holding three people — women from Indonesia and Vietnam, and a North Korean man — but want to speak to seven others, including diplomat Hyon Kwang Song.

But Malaysia’s top policeman acknowledged on Thursday that unless Mr Hyon, second secretary at the North Korean mission, volunteers himself, they will not be able to speak to him.

“We will adhere to the rules of immunity,” Inspector-General of police Khalid Abu Bakar said. “We cannot go inside the embassy.”

Malaysian police believe four North Korean suspects may have fled to Pyongyang immediately after the killing.

* Agence France-Presse