After two years in legal limbo, one of the two women accused of killing Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has been set free by a Malaysian court.
All murder charges pending against Indonesian national Siti Aisyah have been dropped, without an acquittal, after prosecutors decided to withdraw their case. She had pleaded not guilty to the accusations. No reason has been given for the swift turn of events.
Upon hearing the developments in her case this morning, 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.
