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Report: N Korean diplomat sent off four suspects sought by cops
Published:  Feb 23, 2017 11:55 AM
Updated: 4:40 AM

Police are seeking to question a North Korean diplomat, who was seen sending off to Pyongyang the four suspects sought in the murder of Kim Jong-nam.

Channel NewsAsia (CNA) quoted a senior police source as saying the diplomat, who is the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, was caught on CCTV sending off the four men at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on the same day Jong-Nam was murdered.

"He was there at KLIA together with a staff from Air Koryo on Feb 13," the source is quoted as saying.

The 44-year-old diplomat, as well as the 37-year-old airline staff, are believed to be still in the country.

On the four North Korean suspects, police believe the men, aged between 33 and 57, planned and executed the murder of Jong-nam, the older half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2).

The suspects are alleged to have recruited the two female suspects - a Vietnamese and an Indonesian, who accosted Jong-nam before he was about to leave for Macau, and allegedly administered a poisonous substance on him on the morning of Feb 13.

According to news reports, the four men escaped back to North Korea, after flying to Jakarta, Dubai and then Vladivostok.

Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar has called on the North Korean embassy to compel the two men to come forward to assist in the investigation, as well as to help in tracing the four suspects in Pyongyang.

On Khalid's assertion that security was tightened at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital mortuary, where Jong-nam's body is kept, as there was break-in attempt, the police source told CNA that it was a reporter who had tried to enter the mortuary to "get an exclusive story".

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