Kim Jong Nam murder suspect ‘visited Cambodia for TV pranks’

An Indonesian woman charged with murdering the North Korean leader's half-brother visited Cambodia to take part in what she believed were pranks for a TV show with suspected Pyongyang agents, a court heard yesterday.

Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese woman Doan Thi Huong are on trial for the Cold War-style assassination of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13 last year while he was waiting for a flight to Macau.

Defence lawyers have argued that the women were recruited to take part in what they thought were prank TV shows but were instead tricked into becoming inadvertent assassins, in an elaborate plot by a group of North Korean agents.

The women, in their 20s, have denied carrying out the murder of Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother by smearing a nerve agent in his face. They face death by hanging if found guilty.