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| Kim Jong-un’s Half Brother Is Reported Assassinated in Malaysia | Kim Jong-un’s Half Brother Is Reported Assassinated in Malaysia |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| SEOUL, South Korea — The estranged half brother of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was assassinated in Malaysia this week, the South Korean news media reported Tuesday, citing an unidentified government source. | SEOUL, South Korea — The estranged half brother of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was assassinated in Malaysia this week, the South Korean news media reported Tuesday, citing an unidentified government source. |
| The half brother, Kim Jong-nam, 45, was killed by two women who attacked him with poison needles at Kuala Lumpur airport on Monday, South Korea’s all-news channel TV Chosun reported without identifying its source. Yonhap news agency also reported the killing, without confirming any of those details. | |
| The women fled in a taxi after the attack, and the local police were searching for them, the TV Chosun report said. | The women fled in a taxi after the attack, and the local police were searching for them, the TV Chosun report said. |
| South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and its Unification Ministry said they could not immediately confirm the report. | South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and its Unification Ministry said they could not immediately confirm the report. |
| Reports of the killing come amid a period of turmoil in the upper ranks of North Korea’s leadership. The chief of North Korea’s powerful secret police, long considered the right-hand man for the top leader, Kim Jong-un, was recently dismissed on charges of corruption and abuse of power, according to the South Korean government. | Reports of the killing come amid a period of turmoil in the upper ranks of North Korea’s leadership. The chief of North Korea’s powerful secret police, long considered the right-hand man for the top leader, Kim Jong-un, was recently dismissed on charges of corruption and abuse of power, according to the South Korean government. |
| In Kuala Lumpur, a government official said that workers and the police had found a man who was ill at Kuala Lumpur International Airport airport Monday and that he was taken to the hospital and died. The official said authorities were awaiting the results of an autopsy. | |
| Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of the deceased North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, was once considered the heir to power in the dynastic regime in Pyongyang. But he was believed to have hobbled his chance of becoming leader when he was caught in 2001 while trying to take his son to Tokyo Disneyland with a fake visa. He was detained until May 4, when he was deported to China. | |
| North Korea began actively grooming Kim Jong-un as heir after their father suffered a stroke in 2008. As his younger brother consolidated his power, Kim Jong-nam lived in semi-exile abroad. Until recently, he had sometimes been seen in Macau. TV Chosun said he had also been visiting Singapore and Malaysia, where he had girlfriends. | |
| Like his half brother, Kim Jong-nam spent time in Switzerland as a teenager. | |
| Mr. Kim was once questioned in Macau by a reporter about the likelihood that his brother would take over the leadership of North Korea, and he seemed to accept his fate. | |
| “It is my father’s decision,” he said. “So, once he decides, we have to support.” |