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https://english.kyodonews.net/news/...in-kim-jong-nam-murder-freed-in-malaysia.html
Vietnamese woman sentenced in Kim Jong Nam murder freed in Malaysia
KYODO NEWS - 4 hours ago - 09:55 | World, All, Lifestyle
The Vietnamese woman who was sentenced to 40 months in a Malaysian jail over the killing of the estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was freed Friday.
Doan Thi Huong, 30, was released from the women's prison in Kajang on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur and is expected to return to Vietnam later in the day.
She was handed over to immigration officials for deportation processing, her lawyer Salim Bashir told Kyodo News.
(Doan Thi Huong)
Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's paternal half-brother, was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13, 2017, with the toxic nerve agent VX. Huong was arrested two days later and charged with murder but pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of "causing hurt."
Related coverage:
Vietnamese woman in Kim Jong Nam murder trial to be freed May 3
Vietnamese in Kim Jong Nam murder trial in Malaysia gets 40 months
Case against Vietnamese to continue in Kim Jong Nam murder trial
Huong and her co-accused, Siti Aisyah, claimed they believed they were taking part in a television prank and were tricked into smearing the lethal nerve agent on the victim's face.
(Siti Aisyah, center)
Prosecutors alleged that the women had a "common intention" with four North Koreans to murder Kim Jong Nam, but the four -- Ri Ji Hyon, Ri Jae Nam, Hong Song Hac and O Jong Gil -- fled Malaysia within hours of the incident and are believed to have returned to North Korea.
The Malaysian attorney general withdrew the murder charge against Aisyah, a 27-year-old from Indonesia, and she was freed in March following lobbying from Jakarta. The Vietnamese government had similarly been making representations to the attorney general on behalf of Hoang.
If convicted of murder, they would have faced a mandatory sentence of death by hanging.
May 3, 2019 | KYODO NEWS
https://news.sina.com.cn/w/2019-05-03/doc-ihvhiewr9589731.shtml
马来西亚释放"谋杀朝鲜金姓男子"越南女嫌犯(图)
2019年05月03日 11:04 环球时报
0
原标题：马来西亚释放“谋杀金姓男子”越南女嫌犯
据路透社3日消息，2017年朝鲜金姓男子遇刺一案中的越南籍女嫌犯段氏香周五获释，此前她已在马来西亚服刑两年。而该案的另一名印尼籍女嫌犯已在3月11日获释。
随着案件两名主要嫌犯先后获释，金姓男子遇刺恐将成悬案。
▲段氏香资料图 图自路透社
据悉，段氏香的律师表示，马来西亚政府于当地时间3日早上约7时20分释放了段氏香，她稍后将乘坐飞机返回越南河内。上个月，马来西亚检方撤销了对段氏香的谋杀指控，此前她承认了另一项造成伤害的指控。
2017年2月13日，一名朝鲜籍男子在吉隆坡国际机场寻求医疗救助，随后在送往医院途中身亡。马来西亚警方称，死者面部和眼部均含有VX神经性毒剂。
越南外交部当年2月曾发布声明，称确定在马来西亚杀害朝鲜公民的嫌疑犯之一段氏香为越南公民。印尼外交部当时也确认，在马来西亚落网并涉嫌杀害金姓男子的第二名女嫌犯属于印尼籍，并证实该女嫌犯的名字为西蒂·艾莎。
责任编辑：张申
http://time.com/5582569/doan-thi-huong-freed-kim-jong-nam/
The Vietnamese Woman in Kim Jong Nam's Murder Case Has Been Freed From Jail
By Hillary Leung
12:26 AM EDT
The Vietnamese woman accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother has been released from prison, bringing an inconclusive close to the shocking case of a brazenly public assassination that captured the world’s attention a little more than two years ago.
Doan Thi Huong, 28, left the Malaysia jail Friday, her lawyer confirmed to TIME, and will be flown home in the evening. Huong was sentenced in early April to three years and four months in prison after she accepted a lesser charge of “voluntarily causing injury,” and her early release was expected.
The release comes just less than two months after Siti Aisyah, the Indonesian woman who was also tried in the case, was unexpectedly freed.
On Feb. 13, 2017, Kim Jong Nam was waiting for a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia when two women approached him. One grabbed him from behind while the other pressed her hand to his face, CCTV footage showed. It was later revealed that he was exposed to the toxic VX nerve agent, a synthetic chemical weapon so lethal that just a fraction of a drop can fatally disrupt the nervous system.
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Shortly after, Kim began to feel ill and eventually died en route to the hospital. He was 45, and was the presumed heir to the hermit state until he fell out of favor and moved to Macau after a 2001 incident during which he was seized by Japanese authorities in a Tokyo airport for traveling on a forged passport. Still, there is speculation that Kim Jong Un felt threatened by the older half-sibling, who criticized the regime from afar.
Huong and Aisyah, both apprehended in the days after being captured on security cameras, pleaded not guilty and said that they thought they were executing a prank for a TV show and did not know who the man was or that they were carrying out a hit. Malaysian authorities charged the two with murder, and also named four North Korean men as suspects, though none have been charged.
Huong’s release marks an end to the two-years-long case, but it hardly brings closure to the crime.
“The planners, organizers, and overseers of the assassination of Kim Jong Nam have indeed ‘gotten away with it,'” Evans Revere, formerly the acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told CNN. “No one will be held responsible for this horrific attack in which a weapon of mass destruction was used to kill a human being in an international airport.”
Write to Hillary Leung at [email protected].
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48142871
Kim Jong-nam: Vietnamese woman freed in murder case
Related Topics
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Doan Thi Huong is now expected return to Vietnam, her lawyer says
The Vietnamese woman accused of the 2017 killing of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader, has been released, her lawyer says.
Doan Thi Huong accepted a deal with Malaysian prosecutors last month and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of "causing injury".
Ms Huong and Indonesian Siti Aisyah were accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Mr Kim in Kuala Lumpur airport.
Both women denied murder and said they thought they were part of a TV prank.
They said they were tricked into carrying out the killing as innocent victims of an elaborate North Korean plot.
Ms Huong is expected to fly back to Vietnam later on Friday.
"I met Doan yesterday at the prison to give her new clothes and a pair of shoes," Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, one of her lawyers, told BBC Vietnamese.
"She was obviously very happy to be released and looks forward to being reunited with her family."
Image copyright AFP Image caption Charges against the other defendant Siti Aisyah (centre) were dropped in March
Her co-defendant Siti Aisyah was freed in March after charges against her were dropped. The prosecution did not provide a reason for the decision.
How did the murder happen?
Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, had been waiting to board a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Macau on 13 February 2017 when two women approached him in the departure area.
CCTV footage showed one of them placing her hands over his face, then both women leaving the scene.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Kim Jong-nam, pictured in 2001, the late half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
Mr Kim died on the way to hospital from what was later found to be exposure to the nerve agent VX, one of the most toxic of all known chemical agents.
North Korea has fiercely denied any involvement in the killing, but four men - believed to be North Koreans who fled Malaysia on the day of the murder - have also been charged in the case.
They remain at large despite an Interpol "red notice", equivalent to an international arrest warrant.
Who was Kim Jong-nam?
Kim Jong-nam was the older half-brother of North Korea's authoritarian ruler, Kim Jong-un.
He was once seen as a future leader of the isolated country, but when his father Kim Jong-il died, was bypassed in favour of the younger Kim.
He was largely estranged from the family, and spent most of his time overseas in Macau, mainland China and Singapore.
He had spoken out in the past against his family's dynastic control of North Korea, and in a 2012 book was quoted as saying he believed his half-brother lacked leadership qualities.
Related Topics
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...-nam-assassination-freed-190503003406795.html
Vietnamese suspect in Kim Jong Nam assassination freed
Woman who spent more than two years in Malaysian prison on suspicion of killing Kim Jong Un's half-brother freed.
4 hours ago
Huong received a jail term of several years which was cut due to sentence remissions. [Farzy Ismail/EPA]
more on Malaysia
A Vietnamese woman who spent more than two years in a Malaysian prison on suspicion of killing the half-brother of North Korea's leader has been freed.
Doan Thi Huong, 30, was charged along with an Indonesian woman of poisoning Kim Jong Nam by smearing his face with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017.
Huong received a jail term of several years which was cut due to sentence remissions.
After a lengthy trial, Doan Thi Huong pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of "causing injury" over the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam, making her the only person convicted for a murder that made headlines around the world.
Malaysian prosecutors dropped a murder charge following that.
She was freed from a prison outside the Malaysian capital at about 7:20am (23:20 GMT Thursday), her lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told AFP news agency, adding that she would return to Vietnam later on Friday.
READ MORE
Vietnamese suspect in Kim Jong Nam murder to be released soon
Weeks earlier, Indonesian Siti Aisyah - the only other person to face trial over the killing - was released and flew home after her murder charge was withdrawn.
The pair always denied having committed murder, arguing that they were pawns in a plan hatched by North Korean agents who fled Malaysia after the killing.
South Korea accused Pyongyang of plotting the assassination.
Journalists waiting outside the jail saw a van and a car with tinted windows race past, and a court official at the scene also confirmed Huong had been released.
Speaking before her release, Hisyam had said she was "definitely looking forward to going home".
The 30-year-old former hair salon worker was expected to head to an immigration office in the administrative capital Putrajaya to sort out documentation, before flying to Vietnam.
While there is relief for the women - who said they believed they were taking part in a TV show prank - those behind the plot are unlikely to ever face justice.
"The assassins have not been brought to justice," said Hisyam, adding the women's legal teams consistently argued their North Korean handlers were the real murderers.
The pair were arrested after they were captured on airport CCTV cameras walking up behind Kim, as he waited for a flight, and one was seen clasping her hands over his face.
Kim, heir apparent to North Korea's leadership until he was exiled from his homeland, died in agony shortly afterwards, his face smeared with poison.
The defence stage of the case was due to start in March, but in a shock move, prosecutors announced they were withdrawing the murder charge against Aisyah, 27, and she flew back to Jakarta.
Her release followed intense diplomatic pressure from Indonesia, including from President Joko Widodo.
Vietnam then stepped up pressure for Huong's murder charge to be dropped. Their initial request was refused, but at the start of April prosecutors offered her a reduced charge, paving the way for her release.
SOURCE: News agencies
Vietnamese woman sentenced in Kim Jong Nam murder freed in Malaysia
The Vietnamese woman who was sentenced to 40 months in a Malaysian jail over the killing of the estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was freed Friday.
Doan Thi Huong, 30, was released from the women's prison in Kajang on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur and is expected to return to Vietnam later in the day.
She was handed over to immigration officials for deportation processing, her lawyer Salim Bashir told Kyodo News.
Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's paternal half-brother, was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13, 2017, with the toxic nerve agent VX. Huong was arrested two days later and charged with murder but pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of "causing hurt."
Related coverage:
Vietnamese woman in Kim Jong Nam murder trial to be freed May 3
Vietnamese in Kim Jong Nam murder trial in Malaysia gets 40 months
Case against Vietnamese to continue in Kim Jong Nam murder trial
Huong and her co-accused, Siti Aisyah, claimed they believed they were taking part in a television prank and were tricked into smearing the lethal nerve agent on the victim's face.
Prosecutors alleged that the women had a "common intention" with four North Koreans to murder Kim Jong Nam, but the four -- Ri Ji Hyon, Ri Jae Nam, Hong Song Hac and O Jong Gil -- fled Malaysia within hours of the incident and are believed to have returned to North Korea.
The Malaysian attorney general withdrew the murder charge against Aisyah, a 27-year-old from Indonesia, and she was freed in March following lobbying from Jakarta. The Vietnamese government had similarly been making representations to the attorney general on behalf of Hoang.
If convicted of murder, they would have faced a mandatory sentence of death by hanging.
May 3, 2019 | KYODO NEWS
https://news.sina.com.cn/w/2019-05-03/doc-ihvhiewr9589731.shtml
马来西亚释放"谋杀朝鲜金姓男子"越南女嫌犯(图)
2019年05月03日 11:04 环球时报
0
原标题：马来西亚释放“谋杀金姓男子”越南女嫌犯
据路透社3日消息，2017年朝鲜金姓男子遇刺一案中的越南籍女嫌犯段氏香周五获释，此前她已在马来西亚服刑两年。而该案的另一名印尼籍女嫌犯已在3月11日获释。
随着案件两名主要嫌犯先后获释，金姓男子遇刺恐将成悬案。
据悉，段氏香的律师表示，马来西亚政府于当地时间3日早上约7时20分释放了段氏香，她稍后将乘坐飞机返回越南河内。上个月，马来西亚检方撤销了对段氏香的谋杀指控，此前她承认了另一项造成伤害的指控。
2017年2月13日，一名朝鲜籍男子在吉隆坡国际机场寻求医疗救助，随后在送往医院途中身亡。马来西亚警方称，死者面部和眼部均含有VX神经性毒剂。
越南外交部当年2月曾发布声明，称确定在马来西亚杀害朝鲜公民的嫌疑犯之一段氏香为越南公民。印尼外交部当时也确认，在马来西亚落网并涉嫌杀害金姓男子的第二名女嫌犯属于印尼籍，并证实该女嫌犯的名字为西蒂·艾莎。
责任编辑：张申
http://time.com/5582569/doan-thi-huong-freed-kim-jong-nam/
The Vietnamese Woman in Kim Jong Nam's Murder Case Has Been Freed From Jail
By Hillary Leung
12:26 AM EDT
The Vietnamese woman accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother has been released from prison, bringing an inconclusive close to the shocking case of a brazenly public assassination that captured the world’s attention a little more than two years ago.
Doan Thi Huong, 28, left the Malaysia jail Friday, her lawyer confirmed to TIME, and will be flown home in the evening. Huong was sentenced in early April to three years and four months in prison after she accepted a lesser charge of “voluntarily causing injury,” and her early release was expected.
The release comes just less than two months after Siti Aisyah, the Indonesian woman who was also tried in the case, was unexpectedly freed.
On Feb. 13, 2017, Kim Jong Nam was waiting for a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia when two women approached him. One grabbed him from behind while the other pressed her hand to his face, CCTV footage showed. It was later revealed that he was exposed to the toxic VX nerve agent, a synthetic chemical weapon so lethal that just a fraction of a drop can fatally disrupt the nervous system.
The Brief Newsletter
Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample
Sign Up Now
Shortly after, Kim began to feel ill and eventually died en route to the hospital. He was 45, and was the presumed heir to the hermit state until he fell out of favor and moved to Macau after a 2001 incident during which he was seized by Japanese authorities in a Tokyo airport for traveling on a forged passport. Still, there is speculation that Kim Jong Un felt threatened by the older half-sibling, who criticized the regime from afar.
Huong and Aisyah, both apprehended in the days after being captured on security cameras, pleaded not guilty and said that they thought they were executing a prank for a TV show and did not know who the man was or that they were carrying out a hit. Malaysian authorities charged the two with murder, and also named four North Korean men as suspects, though none have been charged.
Huong’s release marks an end to the two-years-long case, but it hardly brings closure to the crime.
“The planners, organizers, and overseers of the assassination of Kim Jong Nam have indeed ‘gotten away with it,'” Evans Revere, formerly the acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told CNN. “No one will be held responsible for this horrific attack in which a weapon of mass destruction was used to kill a human being in an international airport.”
Write to Hillary Leung at [email protected].
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48142871
Kim Jong-nam: Vietnamese woman freed in murder case
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Related Topics
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Doan Thi Huong is now expected return to Vietnam, her lawyer says
The Vietnamese woman accused of the 2017 killing of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader, has been released, her lawyer says.
Doan Thi Huong accepted a deal with Malaysian prosecutors last month and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of "causing injury".
Ms Huong and Indonesian Siti Aisyah were accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Mr Kim in Kuala Lumpur airport.
Both women denied murder and said they thought they were part of a TV prank.
They said they were tricked into carrying out the killing as innocent victims of an elaborate North Korean plot.
Ms Huong is expected to fly back to Vietnam later on Friday.
"I met Doan yesterday at the prison to give her new clothes and a pair of shoes," Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, one of her lawyers, told BBC Vietnamese.
"She was obviously very happy to be released and looks forward to being reunited with her family."
Image copyright AFP Image caption Charges against the other defendant Siti Aisyah (centre) were dropped in March
Her co-defendant Siti Aisyah was freed in March after charges against her were dropped. The prosecution did not provide a reason for the decision.
How did the murder happen?
Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, had been waiting to board a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Macau on 13 February 2017 when two women approached him in the departure area.
CCTV footage showed one of them placing her hands over his face, then both women leaving the scene.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Kim Jong-nam, pictured in 2001, the late half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
Mr Kim died on the way to hospital from what was later found to be exposure to the nerve agent VX, one of the most toxic of all known chemical agents.
North Korea has fiercely denied any involvement in the killing, but four men - believed to be North Koreans who fled Malaysia on the day of the murder - have also been charged in the case.
They remain at large despite an Interpol "red notice", equivalent to an international arrest warrant.
Who was Kim Jong-nam?
Kim Jong-nam was the older half-brother of North Korea's authoritarian ruler, Kim Jong-un.
He was once seen as a future leader of the isolated country, but when his father Kim Jong-il died, was bypassed in favour of the younger Kim.
He was largely estranged from the family, and spent most of his time overseas in Macau, mainland China and Singapore.
He had spoken out in the past against his family's dynastic control of North Korea, and in a 2012 book was quoted as saying he believed his half-brother lacked leadership qualities.
Related Topics
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...-nam-assassination-freed-190503003406795.html
Vietnamese suspect in Kim Jong Nam assassination freed
Woman who spent more than two years in Malaysian prison on suspicion of killing Kim Jong Un's half-brother freed.
4 hours ago
Huong received a jail term of several years which was cut due to sentence remissions. [Farzy Ismail/EPA]
more on Malaysia
- North Korea: Chemistry, a killing, and then karaoketoday
- Former PM Najib fails to have seven corruption charges dismissed3 days ago
- China signals Belt and Road shift with Malaysia rail project2 weeks ago
- The media backstory behind Malaysia's 1MDB corruption case2 weeks ago
A Vietnamese woman who spent more than two years in a Malaysian prison on suspicion of killing the half-brother of North Korea's leader has been freed.
Doan Thi Huong, 30, was charged along with an Indonesian woman of poisoning Kim Jong Nam by smearing his face with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017.
Huong received a jail term of several years which was cut due to sentence remissions.
After a lengthy trial, Doan Thi Huong pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of "causing injury" over the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam, making her the only person convicted for a murder that made headlines around the world.
Malaysian prosecutors dropped a murder charge following that.
She was freed from a prison outside the Malaysian capital at about 7:20am (23:20 GMT Thursday), her lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told AFP news agency, adding that she would return to Vietnam later on Friday.
READ MORE
Vietnamese suspect in Kim Jong Nam murder to be released soon
Weeks earlier, Indonesian Siti Aisyah - the only other person to face trial over the killing - was released and flew home after her murder charge was withdrawn.
The pair always denied having committed murder, arguing that they were pawns in a plan hatched by North Korean agents who fled Malaysia after the killing.
South Korea accused Pyongyang of plotting the assassination.
Journalists waiting outside the jail saw a van and a car with tinted windows race past, and a court official at the scene also confirmed Huong had been released.
Speaking before her release, Hisyam had said she was "definitely looking forward to going home".
The 30-year-old former hair salon worker was expected to head to an immigration office in the administrative capital Putrajaya to sort out documentation, before flying to Vietnam.
While there is relief for the women - who said they believed they were taking part in a TV show prank - those behind the plot are unlikely to ever face justice.
"The assassins have not been brought to justice," said Hisyam, adding the women's legal teams consistently argued their North Korean handlers were the real murderers.
The pair were arrested after they were captured on airport CCTV cameras walking up behind Kim, as he waited for a flight, and one was seen clasping her hands over his face.
Kim, heir apparent to North Korea's leadership until he was exiled from his homeland, died in agony shortly afterwards, his face smeared with poison.
The defence stage of the case was due to start in March, but in a shock move, prosecutors announced they were withdrawing the murder charge against Aisyah, 27, and she flew back to Jakarta.
Her release followed intense diplomatic pressure from Indonesia, including from President Joko Widodo.
Vietnam then stepped up pressure for Huong's murder charge to be dropped. Their initial request was refused, but at the start of April prosecutors offered her a reduced charge, paving the way for her release.
SOURCE: News agencies
