How North Korea got away with murder in Malaysia

Pyongyang releases nine Malaysians and Prime Minister Najib Razak returns Kim Jong-nam’s body to North Korea, but an expert says the rogue state’s regional espionage efforts are more firmly entrenched than ever

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Mohd Nur Azrin Md Zin, centre, one of the nine returning Malaysian nationals, hugs his family on arrival in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: EPA

Published: 7:33pm, 31 Mar 2017Updated: 5:33pm, 7 Jul 2017

With the release of nine Malaysians from Pyongyang yesterday – three diplomatic staff and their family members – the geopolitical saga over the assassination of Kim Jong-nam on February 13 appears to have come to an end.

At the heart of the issue was not the possession or transport of Kim Jong-nam’s body – now returned to Pyongyang – but rather the two North Korean suspects who were holed up in their embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

The pair have since been put on a flight back to Pyongyang via Beijing – incidentally, on the same aeroplane that repatriated Kim Jong-nam’s remains as well.

A man believed to be Kim Uk-il, an employee of North Korea's national airline Air Koryo, is pictured on a plane ahead of its departure from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 30. Kim and another North Korean man linked to the apparent assassination of Kim Jong-nam, arrived in Beijing in the early hours of March 31. Photo: Kyodo

Suspicions abound that Malaysia leaned on its special relationship with China to compel the North Korean leadership to relent on the issue.

China and North Korea do have some semblance of a normal relationship, even though President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Kim Jong-un have never met.