Authorities are still waiting for the North Korean’s next of kin to claim the body. Police say they will only release it if a family member comes forward with a DNA sample.
Speaking yesterday, Najib said authorities were still trying to get a DNA sample from Jong Nam’s family.
“Maybe they are scared to come forward,” he was quoted as saying in a report by The Associated Press (AP).
Earlier, police had given conflicting statements on the matter. On Feb 24, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Noor Rashid Ibrahim said a family member was expected to arrive in Malaysia soon. However, this was refuted the next day by Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar, who said his deputy had been “misquoted” on the matter.
Jong Nam’s death and subsequent events have led to downward spiralling diplomatic relations between Malaysia and North Korea, with the communist state demanding that Malaysia release the body of its leader’s estranged half-brother.
On Tuesday, angry exchanges between the two countries escalated into North Korea imposing a temporary ban on all Malaysians leaving the country.
Malaysia responded in kind by barring North Koreans in the country from leaving.
Meanwhile yesterday, a video was released showing a man who claimed to be Jong Nam’s son, Kim Han Sol. The 40-second clip was sent to Channel NewsAsia (CNA) by a group calling itself Cheollima Civil Defense.
After identifying himself as Han Sol, the man in the video says that he is currently with his mother and sister. He signs off by saying, “We hope this gets better soon.”
According to CNA, Do Hee Youn, an activist with the Citizens Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, confirmed that the man in the video was Han Sol.
The AP report added that an official at South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) had confirmed the man’s identity as Han Sol.
Although no details were given on how this had been established, AP quoted an aide to a lawmaker on South Korea’s intelligence committee who said NIS officials had given the same confirmation to the office.
Both the NIS official and the aide spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they weren’t authorised to give information to the media.
AP also reported that a private voice analysis institute in Seoul had compared the CNA video with an interview that Han Sol had given to Finnish television in 2012. The Transcription Analysis Laboratory concluded that there was a “high probability” that the two videos were of the same speaker.
Jong Nam was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) in Sepang while awaiting a flight to Macau on Feb 13. He was attacked by two women who wiped his face with a substance later identified as VX nerve agent, a rapid-acting chemical poison classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
The two women, one Vietnamese and the other Indonesian, have been charged with murder. Police are seeking the assistance of two North Korean men believed to be holed up in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.