When the dramatic news broke this morning that Indonesian citizen Siti Aisyah — one of the two women accused of killing Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — had been set free by a Malaysian court, nobody knew the exact reason the charges against her had been dropped as neither the prosecutors nor any other Malaysian official gave one.
But, according to the Indonesian government, the reason that the murder charges pending against Siti had been dropped was due to the intense diplomatic efforts made on behalf of their citizen.
Indonesia’s ambassador to Malaysia, Rusdi Kirana, (who also happens to be the CEO of Lion Air) said there were a number of meetings and actors behind Siti’s release, including his country’s minister of law and human rights, Yasonna Laoly, who entreated the Malaysian attorney general not to prosecute Siti due to the evidence that she had been tricked into carrying out the assassination, thinking it was part of a reality game show.
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Rusdi said that the effort to save Siti from prosecution started at the very top.
“The request is in line with the direction of the Indonesian president after coordination with the Indonesian minister of Law and Human Rights, the Indonesian minister of Foreign Affairs, the Indonesian Police chief, the Indonesian Attorney General, and the head of the State Intelligence Agency,” Rusdi Kirana said in a statement released by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights today that was picked up by Detik.
“This effort has always always been raised at every bilateral meeting between Indonesia-Malaysia, including at the level of the president, vice president, as well as regular meetings between the minister of Foreign Affairs and other ministers with their Malaysian counterparts,” Rusdi continued.
The ambassador to Malaysia said that the two most significant meetings behind Siti’s release were a meeting between President Jokowi and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad in June 2018, and a meeting between Mahathir and Yasonna in August of last year.
While it’s impossible to know to what degree the diplomatic efforts of the Indonesian government made a difference in Siti’s case, it certainly looks like a major PR win for the administration of President Joko Widodo ahead of the national election on April 17.
Freedom for Siti
Siti’s release from Malaysian custody this morning came after she had spent some two years in legal limbo. Upon hearing that the charges against her had been dropped and she was a free woman once more, Siti left the Shah Alam courtroom and was escorted into a waiting car.
“I finished my job,” Siti’s lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng is reported to have said.
“She is a free person now, she will be going back to Indonesia.” She was later seen leaving the court in a car from the Indonesian embassy.
Both Siti, and another woman – Vietnamese national Duan Thi Huong – were arrested after they were seemingly captured on airport CCTV helping carry out Kim Jong-nam’s murder by smearing a nerve agent on his face in the middle of Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2. Had they been found guilty, both could have faced the death penalty.
Previously, the women had argued that they were tricked into thinking they were taking part in prank on a Japanese game show. In actuality, the two appear to have used VX nerve agent to kill Jong-nam in less than 20 minutes.
Last year, the prosecution made a motion to throw out the case; at the time, the judge ruled that both Siti and Duon should testify, not ruling out that the entire incident could have been a conspiracy between the women and their North Korean counterparts to assassinate the leader’s older brother. Jong-nam had previously been his father’s favorite son and next in line for succession until an embarrassing international incident saw him use a fake Dominican passport to enter Japan. Allegedly, he had just been trying to visit Tokyo’s Disneyland.
Jong-nam would come to be based in Macau, occasionally issuing public statements denouncing his brother’s regime as “a joke.” However, reports have since emerged that he had become fearful of his brother’s ever-reaching arm, and his retaliatory actions.
At the time of his death, Jong-nam was carrying 12 doses of VX nerve agent antidote in his bag.
