Deputy Health Minister Dr Hilmi Yahaya said although there was no decision on the matter yet, there was no time limit on how long a body can be stored at the hospital morgue.

He said the usual procedure for unclaimed bodies was to “give it a burial”.

Hilmi was responding to a statement by Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar who said Kim’s body may be surrendered to the Health Ministry any time.

“This is a very sensitive, very high profile case,” Hilmi said.

“The police have released the body to the Health Ministry and we will decide (but for now) let’s wait.

“We are not in a hurry to do so. There are no rules on how long you could keep a body in Malaysian hospitals, so we can wait,” he told reporters in Balik Pulau here today.

Jong Nam, the elder half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was killed in an attack at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) on Feb 13 when he had arrived there to take a flight to Macau.

Two women, a Vietnamese and an Indonesian, who allegedly wiped his face with a substance identified from an autopsy as the banned deadly VX nerve agent, were charged with murder on March 1.

Jong Nam died within 20 minutes of the attack.

North Korean ambassador Kang Chol, who left Malaysia on March 6 after being expelled, accused the Malaysian government of intentionally delaying the North Korean claim on Jong Nam’s body in a bid to conceal the truth while colluding with external forces to tarnish the reputation of his country.

The government has refused to hand over the body to North Korea until it gets DNA samples from Jong Nam’s immediate family for positive identification.

A video clip has since appeared showing Jong Nam’s son Kim Han Sol identifying himself and speaking in English.

The police have said no family member has come forward to identify or claim the body yet.