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MALAYSIA-NKOREA-TRIAL WRAP
Malaysia court frees woman in North Korea murder case
SHAH ALAM, Malaysia, March 11, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An Indonesian woman
accused of assassinating the North Korean leader’s half-brother was freed
Monday after Malaysian prosecutors dropped a murder charge against her, in a
shock decision a year and a half after she went on trial.
Siti Aisyah smiled as she was ushered through a group of journalists and
into a car outside the court, where she had been on trial alongside a
Vietnamese woman for the murder of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport in
February 2017.
“I feel happy. I did not know this will happen. I did not expect it,” said
the 27-year-old, who was wearing a red headscarf.
When the news was announced in the court outside Kuala Lumpur, Aisyah had
a brief hug in the dock with the Vietnamese accused, Doan Thi Huong, who
began sobbing.
The development was a surprise as the court had only been due to hear Huong
testify Monday. Huong was “traumatised” she had not been freed too, her
lawyer said, and the court agreed to adjourn her testimony so she could also
apply for her charge to be dropped.
The women had always denied murder, saying they were tricked by North
Korean spies into carrying out the Cold War-style hit using VX nerve agent,
and believed it was a prank for a reality TV show.
Their lawyers presented them as scapegoats, saying that authorities were
unable to catch the real killers. Four North Koreans — formally accused of
the murder alongside the women — fled Malaysia shortly after the
assassination.
The trial, which began in October 2017, had been due to resume Monday with
the defence stage of proceedings after a break of several months.
But at the start of the hearing, prosecutor Muhammad Iskandar Ahmad
requested that the murder charge against Aisyah be withdrawn and that she be
given a discharge, without providing a reason.
The judge agreed to a discharge not amounting to an acquittal, and ordered
Aisyah’s immediate release. This means Aisyah has not been formally cleared
of the charge and could in theory be arrested on suspicion of Kim’s murder
again.
Aisyah’s lawyer Gooi Soon Seng said he was grateful for the decision: “We
still truly believe that she is merely a scapegoat and she’s innocent”. –
Huong ‘traumatised’ –
But speaking to reporters through an interpreter in court, Huong said she
felt “terrible” about her own position.
“I do not know what will happen to me now. I am innocent — please pray
for me,” said the 30-year-old.
In the northern Vietnamese province of Nam Dinh, her father Doan Van Thanh
expressed shock his daughter was still behind bars and called for her
release.
“Why did they release the Indonesian girl without releasing my daughter?”
he told AFP.
Jakarta often makes concerted diplomatic efforts to free its citizens on
death row overseas, and Indonesian officials in Kuala Lumpur released a
letter from the country’s law minister to Malaysia’s attorney-general seeking
Aisyah’s release.
In his response dated March 8, Malaysian Attorney-General Tommy Thomas
agreed to free Aisyah, citing “the good relations between our respective
countries”.
After leaving the Shah Alam High Court, Aisyah was taken to Indonesia’s
embassy in Kuala Lumpur and later set off for an airport to fly back to
Jakarta.
Prosecutors had presented their case in the first stage of the trial.
Witnesses described how the victim — the estranged half-brother of Kim Jong
Un and once seen as heir apparent to the North Korean leadership — died in
agony shortly after being attacked. CCTV footage seen in court during the
trial showed the suspects rushing to separate bathrooms in the airport after
the murder, before leaving in taxis. But their lawyers argued the four North
Koreans were the masterminds, and provided the women with poison on the day
of the murder before fleeing.
In August, a judge ruled there was sufficient evidence the suspects had
murdered Kim, and ordered that the trial continue to the defence stage.
South Korea has accused the North of ordering the hit, which Pyongyang
denies.
Malaysia had been one of the nuclear-armed North’s few allies but the
assassination badly damaged ties, and led to the countries expelling each
other’s ambassadors.
A murder conviction carries a mandatory penalty of death in Malaysia. The
government has vowed to abolish capital punishment for all crimes, although
parliament still needs to vote on changing the law.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1435 hrs