KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s health minister said Sunday autopsy results suggested a nerve agent caused “very serious paralysis” that killed the exiled half brother of North Korea’s leader, as police completed a sweep of the budget terminal where he was poisoned and declared it safe of any toxin.
The investigation has unleashed a serious diplomatic fight between Malaysia and North Korea, a prime suspect in the Feb. 13 killing of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur’s airport. Friday’s revelation by Malaysian police that the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used to kill Kim raised the stakes significantly in a case that has broad geopolitical implications.
Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said the state chemistry department’s finding of the VX toxin confirmed the hospital’s autopsy result that suggested a “chemical agent caused very serious paralysis” that led to death “in a very short period of time.” The agent can lead to death very quickly in high doses, he said.
The killing of Kim Jong Nam took place amid crowds of travelers at Kuala Lumpur’s airport and appeared to be a well-planned hit. Kim died on the way to a hospital, within hours of the attack.
Tens of thousands of passengers have passed through the airport since the apparent assassination was carried out. No areas were cordoned off, and protective measures were not taken. Subramaniam said there have been no reports so far of anyone else being sickened by the toxin.
Early today, a two-hour sweep of the budget terminal involved more than a dozen officers from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear teams, as well as the fire department’s hazardous materials unit and the government’s atomic energy board.
Abdul Samah Mat, the police official leading the investigations, said no hazardous material was detected.
Experts said the nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory and is banned under an international treaty. But North Korea never signed the treaty, and it has spent decades developing a complex chemical weapons program.
Kim was not an obvious political threat to his estranged half brother, Kim Jong Un. But he may have been seen as a potential rival in North Korea’s dynastic dictatorship, even though he had lived in exile for years. North Korea has denied any role in the attack.
Malaysia said that Hyon Kwang Song, a second secretary at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, was wanted for questioning. Abdul Samah, the police official, said authorities would give the diplomat reasonable time to come forward. “And if he failed to turn up … then we will go to the next step by getting a warrant of arrest from the court,” he said.
Lawyer Sankara Nair, however, noted that diplomats have immunity privileges even in criminal cases.
Malaysia hasn’t directly accused the North Korean government of being behind the attack, but officials have said four North Korean men provided two women with poison to carry it out.
The four men fled Malaysia shortly after the killing, while the women — one from Indonesia and the other Vietnamese — were arrested.
Representatives from the Indonesian and Vietnamese embassies in Malaysia met with the two women on Saturday.
Indonesia’s deputy ambassador Andriano Erwin told reporters that Siti Aisyah said she had been paid the equivalent of $90 for what she believed was a harmless prank. Aisyah, 25, said she had been introduced to people who looked like Japanese or Koreans who asked her to play a prank for a reality show, according to Erwin.
Asked if she knew what was on her hands at the time of the attack, Erwin said: “She didn’t tell us about that. She only said that it’s a kind of oil, baby oil, something like that.”
An odorless chemical with the consistency of motor oil, VX is an extremely powerful poison, with an amount no larger than a few grains of salt enough to kill.
The Vietnamese woman, Doan Thi Huong, also thought she was taking part in a prank, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said Saturday.
