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Kim Jong-nam, eldest son of then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, waves after his first-ever interview with South Korean media in Macau in June 2010. Photo: JoongAng Ilbo via AP
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s slain half-brother Kim Jong-nam ‘was a CIA informant’, and ‘almost certainly’ in contact with China, reports say

  • Kim Jong-nam was killed in 2017 in Malaysia, where he had reportedly travelled to meet his contact at the US spy agency
  • South Korean agencies said they could not confirm the report. The CIA declined to comment
North Korea
Reuters
Reuters
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam, who was killed in Malaysia in 2017, had been an informant for the US Central Intelligence Agency, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The Journal cited an unnamed “person knowledgeable about the matter” for the report, and said many details of Kim Jong-nam’s relationship with the CIA remained unclear.

Reuters could not independently confirm the story. The CIA declined to comment. South Korean agencies also said they could not confirm the report.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju watch a performance in an undated photo released on June 3. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

The Journal quoted the person as saying “there was a nexus” between the CIA and Kim Jong-nam.

“Several former US officials said the half-brother, who had lived outside North Korea for many years and had no known power base in Pyongyang, was unlikely to be able to provide details of the secretive country’s inner workings,” the Journal said.

The former officials also said Kim Jong-nam had been almost certainly in contact with security services of other countries, particularly China’s, the Journal said.

Will North Korea try to kill women linked to Kim Jong-nam’s murder?

South Korean and US officials have said the North Korean authorities had ordered the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, who had been critical of his family’s dynastic rule. Pyongyang has denied the allegation.
Two women were charged with poisoning Kim Jong-nam by smearing his face with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. Malaysia released Doan Thi Huong, who is Vietnamese, in May, and Indonesian Siti Aisyah in March.
According to the Journal, the person said Kim Jong-nam had travelled to Malaysia in February 2017 to meet his CIA contact, although that may not have been the sole purpose of the trip.
US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore last June, seeming to build personal goodwill but failing to agree on a deal to lift US sanctions in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear and missile programmes.

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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Poisoned Kim a CIA informant: report
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