Selvam Shanmugam, the lawyer of Vietnamese murder suspect Doan Thi Huong, said this in an interview published by Vietnam’s state-run online newspaper Zing, the South China Morning Post reported today.
Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, was murdered on Feb 13 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 when two women, one of whom was Thi Huong, smeared a liquid on his face. The liquid was later identified by Malaysian authorities as the VX nerve agent, a banned substance considered a weapon of mass destruction.
Malaysian authorities also said Jong Nam died within 20 minutes after coming into contact with the deadly VX.
Selvam however said a new autopsy should be conducted, taking into account that former North Korean ambassador to Malaysia Kang Chol, alleged that the victim had heart problems, diabetes and high blood pressure.
“There were reasons for the North Korean ambassador to say so. I believe that there are issues that the Malaysian attorney-general has to consider,” Selvam was quoted as saying, in his push for a fresh autopsy on the victim his client has been charged with killing.
North Korea meanwhile has refused to publicly acknowledge the murder victim as Jong Nam, and has referred to him only as Kim Chol, the name that appeared in the passport he was carrying.
Selvam also questioned whether the VX nerve agent had indeed been used to kill the North Korean since neither the two women who allegedly handled the liquid nor anyone else at the airport where the incident took place, had been harmed.
“Was it the toxic VX agent or Kim Chol’s illnesses (that killed him)?” the lawyer was quoted as saying in the interview.
Doan Van Thanh, Thi Huong’s father, said he believed his daughter was innocent of murder and agreed to let Selvam represent her.