Kim Jong Nam | Indonesian suspect paid to fly to Macau days before assassination

Siti Aisyah (center)

One of the women accused of poisoning Kim Jong Nam at the Kuala Lumpur airport last year was planning to fly to Macau just days before the February 13 assassination.

The new information came to light as both women, Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, are standing trial accused of murder.

The women’s defense claims that the pair was tricked into playing pranks for a reality TV show, which included smearing an unidentified chemical on passers-by.

The accused say they were unaware that the substance was liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon.

Aisyah’s lawyer told the court late last week that his client had been given 4,000 Malaysian ringgit (MOP8,200) on February 8 to buy plane tickets to Macau, where Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of the incumbent North Korean despot, had been residing in exile for at least a decade.

The trip was arranged by a North Korean national known as Hong Song Hac, who had also arranged visits to other countries to film scenes for the supposed television prank show.

However, Hong called Aisyah later that same day to say that the trip had been cancelled.

According to Reuters, Kim Jong Nam had arrived in Malaysia two days earlier.

Phone records obtained from Aisyah show that she texted a friend on February 8 to say that she was going to Macau for “shooting”. Later that day, she received six calls from Hong, the first five of which went unanswered.

Hong is among the four North Korean nationals who were caught on airport CCTV recordings while fleeing Malaysia on February 13. He remains a suspect in the case.