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Police omitted Kim Jong Nam assassination footage, attorney says

By Elizabeth Shim
A hazmat team conducts checks inside Kuala Lumpur Internatinal Airport at Sepang, Malaysia, in February 2017. File Photo by Fazry Ismail/EPA
A hazmat team conducts checks inside Kuala Lumpur Internatinal Airport at Sepang, Malaysia, in February 2017. File Photo by Fazry Ismail/EPA

March 14 (UPI) -- The defense lawyer for one of the murder suspects in the assassination of Kim Jong Un's half-brother at an airport in Malaysia says police failed to release all footage of the incident and tampered with evidence.

Attorney Gooi Soon Seng, who represents Siti Aisyah, an Indonesian national accused of directly attacking Kim Jong Nam in Kuala Lumpur, said police deliberately omitted key moments of the assassination from closed-circuit television footage before a Shah Alam court in Malaysia, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Wednesday.

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Aisyah, 26, was working with another woman, Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong, who is accused of using a nerve agent to attack the North Korean leader's estranged brother at the airport.

Both women have said they were led to believe they were taking part in a prank for a reality television show.

Gooi said the omitted footage shows his client adjusting her sunglasses after assaulting Kim Jong Nam, a key piece of evidence that was left out in order to convict the defendant.

Malaysian authorities have so far shown the attack using footage showing the attackers walking quickly to an airport restroom to wash their hands.

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The footage of Aisyah touching her sunglasses with her hands was left out, Gooi said, because it was inconvenient evidence for police looking to charge his defendant with homicide.

The suspect had toxic VX nerve agent on her hands during and after the attack.

The attorney added the police did not send Aisyah's sunglasses and jeans to a laboratory for forensic analysis.

Aisyah and Huong, if charged with murder, could face the death penalty, or a hanging execution, according to Yonhap.

Malaysia's relations with North Korea deteriorated after the incident in February 2017, but on Wednesday the government said it welcomed an inter-Korea agreement on a summit in April, Bernama reported.

"Malaysia has long advocated that differences between the two Koreas must be resolved through peaceful negotiations and dialogues," the Malaysian foreign ministry said in statement.

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