Kuala Lumpur- A nerve agent known as VX was used to kill Kim Jong Nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother, in Malaysia last week, police said Friday.
The presence of the VX agent, which is classified as a chemical weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations, was found in swabs taken from Kim Jong Nam’s eyes and face, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters.
Kim was allegedly poisoned by two women who wiped the highly toxic chemical agent on his face at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport on February 13.
South Korea has accused Pyongyang of orchestrating the attack on the first-born son of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
“It will be better for North Korea to admit to the killing and cooperate with the probe,” Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman in South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said Friday.
A Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman, along with a North Korean man, have been arrested in the killing.
One of the women was sickened by the toxic substance following the attack and vomited, the police chief said.
Asked by local media whether people should avoid visiting the airport, Khalid said, “I don’t know, I’m not the expert. We will get the experts to go to the location and to sweep it and see whether anything radioactive is still there.”
The substance is “definitely illicit here,” he added, saying that police were investigating how it was obtained.
The substance is technically known as ethyl S-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothiolate, a police statement said.
It is listed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention Act 2005 and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) 1997.
Malaysian police are searching for seven more North Koreans believed to be linked to the attack, including a diplomat in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur and an airline worker with Air Koryo, the state-owned national flag carrier airline of North Korea
On Thursday police asked Interpol to issue an alert for four North Koreans who fled Malaysia on the day of Kim’s murder.
– dpa
