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Kim Jong Nam

SEOUL/KUALA LUMPUR/UNITED NATIONS. – The estranged half-brother of North Korean (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) leader Kim Jong Un has been killed in Malaysia, a South Korean government source told Reuters yesterday.

Kim Jong Nam, the older half brother of the DPRK leader, was known to spend a significant amount of his time outside the country and had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the isolated state.

He was believed to be in his mid-40s.

Police in Malaysia told Reuters yesterday that an unidentified DPRK man had died en route to hospital from Kuala Lumpur airport on Monday.

Abdul Aziz Ali, police chief for the Sepang district, said the man’s identity had not been verified.

An employee in the emergency ward of Putrajaya hospital said a deceased Korean there was born in 1970 and surnamed Kim.

South Korea’s TV Chosun, a cable television network, said Kim was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two women believed to be DPRK operatives, who were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.

The South Korean government source who spoke to Reuters did not immediately provide further details.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said it could not confirm the reports, and the country’s intelligence agency could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Un are both sons of former leader Kim Jong Il, who died in late 2011, but they had different mothers.

Kim Jong Nam was believed to be close to his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was North Korea’s second most powerful man before being executed on Kim Jong Un’s orders in 2013.

In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was caught at an airport in Japan traveling on a fake passport, saying he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was known to travel to Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China.

He said several times over the years that he had no interest in leading his country.

“Personally, I am against third-generation succession,” he told Japan’s Asahi TV in 2010, before his younger had succeeded their father.

“I hope my younger brother will do his best for the sake of North Koreans’ prosperous lives.”

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on Monday “strongly condemned” the most recent ballistic missile launches by the DPRK, saying that “these launches are in grave violation of the DPRK international obligations under UN SC resolutions.”

The 15-nation UN body was “unanimous” in condemning the DPRK ballistic missile launches on February 11, 2017 and October19, 2016 while the council met behind closed doors here on Monday afternoon, Boloymyr Yelchenko, the Ukrainian permanent representative to the United Nations, who holds the rotating council presidency for February.

“The members of the Security Council deplore all the DPRK ballistic missile activities, including these launches, noting that such activities contribute to the DPRK’s development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension,” the council president said while reading a press statement from the most powerful UN body.

“The members of the Security Council further regretted that the DPRK is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles while DPRK citizens have great unmet needs,” the statement said.

Earlier Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the DPRK’s latest launch of another ballistic missile, saying that “this action is a further troubling violation of Security Council resolutions.”

Guterres said in a statement issued here by his spokesman that, “the DPRK leadership must return to full compliance with its international obligations and to the path of denuclearisation.” – Reuters/Xinhua.