Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian police said Saturday they had arrested a North Korean man linked to the suspected assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
A 46-year-old man was arrested late Friday in the state of Selangor, which surrounds the capital Kuala Lumpur, police said in a statement.
A personal identity card the man was carrying said his name was Ri Jong Chol, the statement added.
The man is the fourth person arrested in connection with the suspected assassination, after a woman carrying Vietnamese travel documents was arrested Wednesday and an Indonesian woman and her Malaysian boyfriend were arrested Thursday.
Meanwhile, police dismissed North Korea’s allegation that Malaysia was purposely delaying the release of Kim Jong Nam’s remains.
“We have rules in Malaysia. While in Malaysia, everyone has to obey and follow our rules and regulations … that includes North Korea,” inspector general Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Khalid Abu Bakar told state news agency Bernama.
He added that until DNA from Kim Jong Nam’s family was obtained, the investigation could not be completed.
Police, however, would not confirm reports that a second autopsy was to take place.
On Friday, North Korea said it would “categorically reject” the results of any postmortem on Kim Jong Nam.
“The Malaysian side forced the postmortem without our permission and witnessing,” North Korea’s ambassador to Malaysia, Kang Chol, told reporters late Friday.
Kim Jong Nam, the 45-year-old eldest of former dictator Kim Jong Il’s three sons, had been due to travel from Kuala Lumpur to Macau on Monday but was apparently killed when he was sprayed with a poisonous substance at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Indonesia’s vice president said Friday that a woman held in Malaysia for suspected involvement in the killing thought she was taking part in a TV prank.
“She was deceived into doing what was thought to be a media prank, a reality show,” Jusuf Kalla was quoted as saying by Detik.com news website.
The woman’s mother told Detik that the family found out about her arrest from television news. “We were shocked,” she said. “We didn’t know anything.”
–dpa
