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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s slain half-brother Kim Jong-nam ‘was a CIA informant’, and ‘almost certainly’ in contact with China, reports say
- Kim Jong-nam was killed in 2017 in Malaysia, where he had reportedly travelled to meet his contact at the US spy agency
- South Korean agencies said they could not confirm the report. The CIA declined to comment
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam, who was killed in Malaysia in 2017, had been an informant for the US Central Intelligence Agency, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
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The Journal cited an unnamed “person knowledgeable about the matter” for the report, and said many details of Kim Jong-nam’s relationship with the CIA remained unclear.
Reuters could not independently confirm the story. The CIA declined to comment. South Korean agencies also said they could not confirm the report.
The Journal quoted the person as saying “there was a nexus” between the CIA and Kim Jong-nam.
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“Several former US officials said the half-brother, who had lived outside North Korea for many years and had no known power base in Pyongyang, was unlikely to be able to provide details of the secretive country’s inner workings,” the Journal said.
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