Wearing a bulletproof vest and a red headscarf, Doan Thi Huong arrived at the court where she has been on trial for a year and a half over the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam at klia2.

On Monday, a murder charge was unexpectedly withdrawn against the Indonesian woman accused alongside her, Siti Aisyah, and she flew back to Jakarta to a jubilant welcome.

Lawyers for Doan – who could face death by hanging if convicted – then asked the government to withdraw the murder charge against her, and prosecutors are expected to announce whether her bid for freedom has been successful.

The women have always denied murder. They say they were tricked by North Korean spies into carrying out the Cold War-style killing using a highly toxic nerve agent, and believed it was a prank for a reality TV show.

Their lawyers presented them as scapegoats and said the real killers were four North Koreans. The men were suspected of being the masterminds behind the plot but fled Malaysia shortly after the assassination.

The trial began in October 2017 but there had been no hearings since August last year when the prosecution finished presenting its case.

Proceedings were scheduled to resume Monday with Doan, 30, testifying – but the unexpected release of Siti Aisyah lead to the trial being adjourned.

Indonesia mounted a diplomatic campaign to free Siti Aisyah, with the country’s justice minister writing to the attorney-general asking for her release.

Since Siti Aisyah’s release, Vietnam has stepped up pressure – the country’s justice minster has also written to the government seeking Doan’s release and the Vietnamese foreign minister has pressed his Malaysian counterpart on the issue.

South Korea has accused the North of ordering the assassination of Jong Nam, the estranged relative of Kim Jong Un and once seen as heir apparent to the North’s leadership. Pyongyang denies the claim.