Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their country's leader returned home today along with the body of victim Kim Jong Nam after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with the reclusive state.
Malaysian police, investigating what US and South Korean officials say was an assassination carried out by North Korean agents, took statements from the three people before they were allowed to leave the country.
"We have obtained whatever we want from them...They have assisted us and they have been allowed to leave," police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, saying there were no grounds to hold the men.
Kim Jong Nam, the elder half-brother of the North's young, unpredictable leader Kim Jong Un, was killed at Kuala Lumpur's airport on 13 February in a bizarre assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal the UN has listed it as a weapon of mass destruction.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the remains of a North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia were returned to the North via Beijing along with "relevant" North Korean citizens.
Malaysian authorities released Kim's body yesterday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn-out diplomatic spat.
Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three given safe passage to leave.
Malaysian prosecutors have charged two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - with killing Kim Jong Nam, but South Korean and US officials had regarded them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.
Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau for several years, survived an attempt on his life in 2012, according to South Korean lawmakers.
They say Kim Jong Un had issued a "standing order" for the assassination in order to consolidate his own power after the 2011 death of their father.
The other North Koreans named by Malaysian investigators are all back in North Korea.
Police believe four fled Malaysia on the same day as the murder and another was held for a week before being released due to insufficient evidence.
Angered by the probe, North Korea ordered a travel ban on Malaysians this month, trapping three diplomats and six family members - including four children - in Pyongyang.
Malaysia, which previously had friendly ties with the unpredictable nuclear-armed state, responded with a ban of its own, but was left with little option but to accede to the North's demands for the return of the body and safe passage for the three nationals hiding in the embassy.
