Will North Korea try to assassinate Doan Thi Huong and Siti Aisyah, the Vietnamese and Indonesian linked to Kim Jong-nam’s murder?

Both women maintain that they were tricked by North Korean agents into smearing nerve agent on the face Kim Jong-un’s half-brother

Siti was released earlier this year and Doan will soon also walk free after accepting a lesser charge. But will Pyongyang try to silence them for good?

Reading Time:4 minutes

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00pm, 2 Apr 2019Updated: 6:26am, 3 Apr 2019

Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong, convicted in connection with the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother two years ago, will never be truly free even after her release from a Malaysian prison next month, experts warn.

Instead, she and Indonesian citizen Siti Aisyah, who was released last month, could be targeted by North Korean agents for elimination, as they were witnesses and accessories to the sensational assassination of Kim Jong-nam on February 13, 2017.

Kim Jong-nam pictured in Macau in 2010. Photo: AP

Both women maintain that they were tricked by North Korean agents into thinking they were playing a prank for a reality TV show when they smeared VX nerve agent on the face of the portly playboy while he was standing at a check-in counter at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Within 20 minutes, he was dead.

If either of them was to later reveal what they did know about the plan then their lives would be in danger, according to Sung-Yoon Lee, professor of Korean studies at Tufts University in the US.

Kim Jong-nam’s accused killers: North Korean puppets or cold-blooded murderers?

“What Pyongyang fears is that after the passage of a few years, either or both of the two women [could] have a change of heart due to contrition or a financial offer from a publisher … and tell the true story, make a movie, go on TV and talk about their interactions [with] their North Korean ‘employers’,“ he said.

Will North Korea try to assassinate Doan Thi Huong and Siti Aisyah, the Vietnamese and Indonesian linked to Kim Jong-nam’s murder?

Both women maintain that they were tricked by North Korean agents into smearing nerve agent on the face Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Siti was released earlier this year and Doan will soon also walk free after accepting a lesser charge. But will Pyongyang try to silence them for good?

Kim Jong-nam’s accused killers: North Korean puppets or cold-blooded murderers?

Both women maintain that they were tricked by North Korean agents into smearing nerve agent on the face Kim Jong-un’s half-brother

Siti was released earlier this year and Doan will soon also walk free after accepting a lesser charge. But will Pyongyang try to silence them for good?