Evidence that the half brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was killed in a Malaysian airport with a deadly nerve agent boosted suspicions the assassination was ordered by Pyongyang — a worrying sign that the isolated country’s leader could be mired in paranoia, Korea watchers said.
The apparent assassination baffled some because Kim Jong Un had wiped out his half brother’s political supporters in North Korea even before their father, former Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il, died in 2011, said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corp.
“There isn’t a faction in North Korea that supported the half brother,” Bennett said. “There really wasn’t a threat. This suggests he was just paranoid, and that gets to be worrisome. If he was paranoid about this, what else will he be paranoid about? Could he decide he just needs to lash out?”
The announcement that Malaysian police found traces of VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam’s face raised the stakes in the political murder mystery. Authorities have arrested eight North Koreans and two Southeast Asian women, and officials in South Korea have accused leaders in North Korea of ordering the hit job on its leader’s exiled half brother who was once seen a potential successor to Kim Jong Il.
On Feb. 13, as Kim Jong Nam waited at the Kuala Lumpur airport, two women approached and apparently spread poison on his face, Malaysian police suspect. He complained to airport staff that he felt dizzy, then died on the way to a hospital.
Most of the world has banned chemical weapons like VX, but North Korea — along with Egypt and Israel — have not signed on to the international chemical weapons pact.
Harvard University biochemistry professor Matthew Meselson said the nerve agent isn’t difficult to make. “A good organic chemist, given access to the right chemicals, the right stocking materials, could do this,” said Meselson, a board member of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said experts have long suspected North Korea of developing a chemical weapons program. He called it “highly unlikely” that the poison came from any other country.
“If, as is widely suspected, Kim Jong Nam was assassinated — murdered under the direction of the North Korean government — and this is in fact VX nerve agent, this would confirm that North Korea has that type of chemical agent,” he said.
“This has sort of a double meaning,” Kimball added. “Whoever used this, first of all, had access to a very specialized, difficult-to-produce chemical. And they were probably not just trying to assassinate this person, but trying to send a message that they have VX nerve agent.”
Herald wire services contributed to this report.
