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Kyodo

Malaysian police said on Saturday they had arrested a North Korean man in connection with the murder of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The man was identified as Ri Jong-chol, born in 1970. He was arrested on Friday night in Selangor state, the police said in a statement.
He is the fourth suspect to be arrested in the investigations surrounding the murder of Kim Jong Nam in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
Why assume Kim Jong-un killed his brother?
Malaysia’s Chinese-language daily China Press reported on Saturday that the arrest was made on Friday evening in the capital.
It said authorities are investigating whether the man is the mastermind behind the mysterious case, in which Kim Jong-nam, son of late North Korean leader Kin Jong-il, was apparently poisoned at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday.
Relatives of Kim Jong-nam, fearing for their safety after his murder in Malaysia on Monday, have been placed under police protection in Macau, sources have confirmed.

The police have already arrested three people over his death – a woman who holds a Vietnamese passport, an Indonesian woman, and a Malaysian man who is believed to be the Indonesian woman’s boyfriend.
The police believe that the holder of the North Korean passport could be one of four men suspected of instructing the two women to spray poison at Kim Jong-nam.
Meanwhile, North Korea denounced Malaysia on Friday over the handling of Kim’s body, although it did not mention Kim by name.
On Saturday, Malaysia performed a second autopsy after the first procedure was inconclusive. Malaysia’s Health Minister S. Subramaniam said a toxicology report on the body could take up to two weeks.
Kim Jong-nam’s family placed under police protection in Macau
“Normally it will take about two weeks to find out what was the cause of death.... Until we find something conclusive we will not be able to release the report,” he said.
Speaking to reporters outside the morgue late on Friday, Pyongyang’s ambassador said Malaysian officials may be “trying to conceal something” and “colluding with hostile forces.”“We will categorically reject the result of the post mortem conducted unilaterally,” North Korea’s Ambassador to Malaysia Kang Chol said in a statement read out before midnight outside a hospital in the Malaysian capital, where the autopsy was performed on the body of Kim.
Kang “strongly demanded” Malaysia release the body without further delay, calling the incident a “political plot” by South Korea and other “hostile forces” against Pyongyang.

Malaysia has concluded that the man who died Monday en route to hospital following the suspected assassination at the airport was the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader.
He said the embassy had tried to stop the postmortem because the dead man was a “diplomatic passport holder” and “our citizen” who was under its consular protection.
Authorities demand DNA samples before releasing Kim Jong-nam’s body
The statement marked North Korea’s first reaction in public to the murder of the 45-year-old half-brother of its leader, who had spent a significant time in foreign countries.
He had been in Malaysia since February 6 with a passport under the name Kim Chol. He is suspected of having been attacked by two women at the airport before he was about to leave for Macao, where South Korea’s spy agency said his family is based. One of the women allegedly sprayed something on his face at the scene.

Before the post mortem was conducted on Wednesday, North Korea told Malaysia that it wanted the body cremated in the Southeast Asian country, according to a Malaysian government official, who spoke to Kyodo News on condition of anonymity on Thursday.
The autopsy was delayed for two days because North Korean officials tried to block it on grounds that their government has jurisdiction over the body, according to the official.
Assassination another sign of instability in North Korea
But Malaysian police eventually went ahead with the procedure, determining that it is a serious criminal case and the cause of death must be confirmed.
Malaysia’s Selangor state police chief Abdul Samah Mat said the body cannot be released before the autopsy results come out.-
Kim’s next of kin have priority to claim the body, but if no such claim is made, it could be released to the embassy, he said.
Meanwhile, the apparent assassination of Kim Jong-nam is strengthening bipartisan calls for the U.S. to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation lifted nine years ago. Doing so would increase the country’s isolation, while potentially complicating any future diplomacy to halt its nuclear and missile programmes.
“It is time to put little Kim back on that list because he is a world terrorist and a threat to world peace,” Representative Ted Poe of Texas said.
Additional reporting by Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse


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Kim Jong-nam

Malaysian police arrest North Korean man over Kim Jong-nam’s murder

Silhoutte of Malaysia Royal Police officer. Photo: EPA

epa05798967 Malaysia Royal Police officer cordon off an area during a police reenactment with a suspect in the murder of a North Korean national (not seen) at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2), in Sepang, Malaysia, 17 February 2017. A press statement released by the Malaysian Royal Police (MRP) on 14 February 2017, said a 46-year-old North Korean named Kim Chol died the previous day on his way to a hospital from a Malaysia International Airport service counter where he sought initial medical treatment. Media reports said Kim Chol, an alias apparently used by Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was attacked by two women with chemical sprays. EPA/CHINA PRESS MALAYSIA OUT

(FILES) This file photo taken on September 25, 2004 shows a man believed to be the eldest son of then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-Nam, answering questions from Japanese reporters at the Beijing International airport. The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who has been murdered in Malaysia, pleaded for his life after a failed assassination bid in 2012, lawmakers briefed by South Korea's spy chief said on February 15, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JIJI PRESS / JIJI PRESS / - Japan OUT

North Korea's ambassador to Malaysia, Kang Chol addresses the media on February 18, 2017 at the main gate of the forensic wing at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, where the body of Kim Jong-Nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader, is being kept. Kang Chol said Pyongyang would reject any results of a post-mortem examination carried out by Kuala Lumpur on the body of Kim Jong-Nam. It is the first official comment from North Korea since the killing of Kim Jong-Nam at Kuala Lumpur international airport on February 13. / AFP PHOTO / STR / Malaysia OUT

Kim Jong-nam’s family placed under police protection in Macau

Relatives have been placed under police protection in Macau. Photo: AFP Photo

***ONE TIME USE ONLY*** ***LOW RESOLUTION IMAGE. MAXIMUM ONE COLUMN*** File picture of Kim Han-sol, the grandson of Kim Jong-il, who is starting school in Bosnia. Kim Han-sol was denied a visa to study in Hong Kong. credit: SCMP Pictures (HANDOUT)

Two women and a boy , who are accompanying a man believed to be Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, get off a police van to be on board of an airplane heading to Beijing at Narita International Airport, northeast of Tokyo, Friday, May 4, 2001. The four people were deported to China after being detained for allegedly entering Japan wityh a forged passport. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

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