The half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with an unidentified American in Malaysia four days before he was assassinated, a police official told a court hearing Monday.
Kim Jong Nam traveled to Langkawi Island, a tourist spot off Malaysia’s west coast, before meeting with an American on Feb. 9, the lead police investigator in the case, Wan Azirul Nizam, told the court.
But Nizam was unable to confirm the hotel or name the American.
“Until today, the identity of the person being referred to could not be obtained,” he said.
A police computer forensics report showed that a laptop belonging to Kim was last used on the same day and that a USB drive had been connected to it — four days before he was killed on Feb.13 when two women allegedly smeared his face with a VX nerve agent as he waited to board a flight to Macau.
Malaysian investigators say four unidentified suspects in Kim’s killing are still at large. Lawyers for the two women said they believed they were taking part in a reality television show hoax. South Korea’s intelligence agency says Kim was the target of an assassination plot ordered by his estranged brother.
Kim Jong Nam reportedly fell out of favor with his and Kim Jong Un’s father, the late Kim Jong Il, in 2001, when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport to visit the Disneyland theme park in Tokyo.
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