Kim Jong Nam's Murder Nowhere Near Being Solved

Doan Thi Huong released from Malaysian prison on Friday
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 3, 2019 9:14 AM CDT
2nd Woman Freed in Kim Jong Nam Murder Case
Doan Thi Huong leaves Shah Alam High Court in Shah Alam, Malaysia, on April 1, 2019.   (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)

Two years after Kim Jong Un's half-brother was murdered, the case seems to be dead as well. Doan Thi Huong, one of two women arrested in the aftermath of Kim Jong Nam's death, is heading home. The Vietnamese woman pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of causing injury with a dangerous weapon—VX nerve agent—and was released from a Malaysian prison Friday morning, per CNN. She was sentenced last month to three years and four months in prison, effective from the day of her February 2017 arrest, and saw "customary" sentence reductions. Her lawyer tells the BBC he met with Huong on Thursday to deliver new clothes and a pair of shoes. "She was obviously very happy to be released."

Huong and Siti Aisyah of Indonesia have long maintained they were unwitting pawns in a North Korean plot designed to mimic a TV prank. The pair approached Kim at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13, 2017, one smearing a substance on his face. Aisyah was held for two years before her murder charge was dropped without explanation in March. "With Huong heading home, it is likely no one will ever be convicted of murder for using one of the world's deadliest chemical weapons to stage a brazen assassination in broad daylight," reports CNN. "The North Koreans have not only got away with it, Southeast Asian countries have been lining up to host Kim Jong Un, including Vietnam," one expert says. Four North Korean suspects remain at large; the US views Pyongyang as responsible. (More Kim Jong Nam stories.)

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