Malaysian police detained a second woman Thursday suspected of involvement in the apparent assassination of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
State-run Bernama news agency reported that she has been remanded in custody for seven days along with a woman who was caught at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Wednesday, two days after Kim Jong Nam was assaulted there with what was believed to be a fast acting poison.
Police said the latest arrest was made at 2 a.m. Thursday local time (2000 GMT Wednesday), and the woman was carrying an Indonesian passport, unlike the first suspect who held Vietnamese travel papers.
Lawmakers in South Korea earlier cited their spy agency as saying it suspected two female North Korean agents had murdered Kim Jong Nam. U.S. government sources also said they believed North Korean assassins were responsible.
The woman arrested in the early hours of Thursday was alone when she was apprehended, a police statement said. Her Indonesian passport bore the name Siti Aishah, and gave her date of birth as February 11, 1992, and place of birth as Serang, Indonesia. The statement gave no other details.
A Malaysian government source confirmed to Reuters that the first suspect detained was the same woman whose image was captured by close circuit television footage showing her wearing a white shirt with the letters “LOL” on the front.
Her travel documents were in the name of Doan Thi Huong, showed a birth date of May 1988 and birthplace of Nam Dinh, Vietnam.
There was still no mention of Kim Jong Nam’s death in North Korean state media as of Thursday morning. At midnight, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark the birthday of his father, the late leader Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.
