Kuala Lumpur: A Vietnamese woman who stood trial for the assassination of the North Korean leader’s half-brother was freed from prison on Friday, bringing down the final curtain on a dramatic and often bizarre two-year murder mystery.
Kim Jong Nam, the estranged relative of Kim Jong Un and once seen as heir apparent to the North’s leadership, died in agony after having his face smeared with a banned nerve agent as he waited at Kuala Lumpur airport in February, 2017.
The sensational killing made headlines around the world, and sparked a furious diplomatic row as Seoul accused Pyongyang of an elaborate plot to murder a figure who had spent years in exile and been critical of his family’s rule.
Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam and Indonesian Siti Aisyah were arrested after being spotted on CCTV approaching Kim, but they always denied murder. The women insisted they were tricked into carrying out the hit by North Korean agents who said it was a reality TV show prank and fled Malaysia after the killing.
They went on trial, but in March prosecutors dropped the murder charge against Aisyah after diplomatic pressure and she flew home. Then last month they withdrew murder charges against Huong, who pleaded guilty to a reduced count of “causing injury” and was told she would be released in May at the end of her sentence.
More than two years after her arrest, the 30-year-old former hair salon worker was freed from prison outside the Malaysian capital in the early morning, racing past journalists in a van with heavily tinted windows.
“I’m very happy, thank you all a lot,” said Huong, in a message read by her lawyers to media after her release.
She went to an immigration office in the afternoon and was due to fly later on Friday to Vietnam, where she will be reunited with her family.
While there is relief for the women, no one else is in custody over the murder and those behind the plot are unlikely to ever be punished. “The assassins have not been brought to justice,” said her lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik. — AFP
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