The Japan Times, in a report published online today, said the Japanese government had provided Malaysia with the North Korean’s fingerprint data from their files, following an attempt by Jong Nam to enter Japan in 2001.
This is the first time that a foreign government has been known to provide some form of support in the investigation into the killing of the man at Malaysia’s low-cost carrier airport, klia2, on the morning of Feb 13.
The fingerprint data was obtained by Japanese authorities in 2001 when Jong Nam used a false passport to try and enter the country. He was detained at the Narita International Airport and told authorities that he wanted to enter the country to visit the Tokyo Disneyland.
Last Friday, Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said the body of the dead North Korean was indeed that of Kim Jong Nam.
“We have now established that Kim Chol is Kim Jong Nam,” Khalid had said, but refused to divulge how the identity was confirmed.
“We have fulfilled the requirements of the law on his identification. For the safety of the witnesses, I am not going to tell you how it was done,” he told reporters at the time.
Jong Nam was the eldest son of former North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, and until the Japan incident in 2001, had been widely touted as the next leader of the republic.
His falling out with his father and later his half-brother, and current North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un, led to him living in exile in China.
Conclusive confirmation of his identity had been one of the bones of contention between Malaysia and North Korea, as Pyongyang said the man was a diplomat and demanded his body be returned.
North Korea insisted the deceased was Kim Chol, the name that appeared in the diplomatic passport he was travelling on when he died. They also claimed that he died from a heart attack.
Jong Nam was killed on Feb 13 while awaiting a flight to Macau. He was attacked by two women who wiped his face with a substance later identified as VX nerve agent, a chemical poison classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
Jong Nam died within 20 minutes of the attack.
The two women, one a Vietnamese and the other an Indonesian, have been charged with murder, while the police seek two North Korean men believed to be holed up in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
Sources told Japan Times that following the attack at the airport, Malaysian authorities did not initially recognise him as Kim Jong Nam and contacted the South Korean embassy first, before notifying the North Korean embassy.
Japan later offered data on Jong Nam’s physical characteristics, such as fingerprints and mug shots, the report said.
Malaysia had later said they were waiting for the next of kin to confirm the identity of the deceased through DNA testing, but so far no one has shown up.
Jong Nam’s son, Kim Han Sol was previously known to be in Macau with other members of the family, but a video released last Wednesday seemed to show that the family is in hiding in an undisclosed location.
The footage was uploaded to YouTube by a group called “Cheollima Civil Defense,” which it says has been protecting Jong Nam’s family.