Add Category
Updated
A man claiming to be the son of Kim Jong-nam — the slain, estranged half brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un — says he has been lying low with his mother and sister since his father was murdered a month ago.
Key points:
- The video has not been independently verified, but the man appears to resemble Kim Han-sol
- Group behind the video thanked the Netherland's North and South Korea ambassador for helping extract the family
- The family had been living in Macau under China's protection
The man appeared in a video posted to Youtube by a group that says it helped rescue the family following Kim Jong-nam's death.
The governments of the Netherlands, China, the United States, and a fourth unnamed country provided emergency humanitarian assistance to protect the family, the group, called Cheollima Civil Defense, said in a statement released on Wednesday along with the video.
An official at South Korea's National Intelligence Service said the man was Kim Han-sol, the 21-year-old son of Kim Jong-nam, who was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in February by assassins using a super-toxic nerve agent.
During the 40-second video, the man says his father was killed a few days ago.
"I'm currently with my mother and my sister," he says, without disclosing his location or who he was living with.
"We hope this gets better soon," he added.
The video could not be independently verified.
But the man closely resembled Kim Han-sol, who was last interviewed on camera in 2012 by former Finnish defence minister Elisabeth Rehn.
Family had been living in Macau
Kim Han-sol is the son of Kim Jong-nam's second wife, who had been living in the Chinese territory of Macau with his father under Beijing's protection after the family went into exile a several years ago.
In a statement released on their website, Cheollima Civil Defense said the organisation responded last month to an emergency request by Kim Jong-nam's family members for "extraction and protection".
It thanked the Netherlands ambassador to North and South Korea, Ambassador Lody Embrechts, for his "timely and strong response" to the group's request for help.
Mr Embrechts, who is based in South Korea, declined to comment on the statement.
Waiting for DNA
In the video, Mr Kim held up a black North Korean service passport in the video and opened it.
The details were edited out, but a North Korean state stamp is visible on one page, as is a line of English text which said the passport's validity had been extended.
North Korean service passports are issued to government officials.
They are black and embossed with gold text which says "PASSPORT (FOR OFFICIAL TRIP)."
South Korean intelligence and US officials say Kim Jong-nam's murder was an assassination organised by North Korean agents.
Malaysian police have identified eight North Koreans wanted for questioning in the case, but the only people charged with the murder so far are an Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman who police say wiped the VX nerve agent on the victim's face.
Malaysia is still waiting for DNA samples of the next of kin to officially verify the identity, but no family member has made contact.
The South-East Asian country has said it would only release Kim's body to the next of kin, refusing demands from North Korea to hand over the body without an autopsy.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, murder-and-manslaughter, law-crime-and-justice, malaysia, korea-democratic-people-s-republic-of
First posted