Kuala Lumpur: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s half brother was assassinated with a lethal nerve agent manufactured for chemical warfare and listed by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction, Malaysian police said on Friday.
Releasing a preliminary toxicology report on Kim Jong-Nam’s murder at Kuala Lumpur airport, police revealed the poison used by the assassins was the odourless, tasteless and highly toxic nerve agent VX.
Kim Jong-Nam
North Korea has a vast chemical weapons stockpile, including VX, of up to 5,000 tonnes, South Korean experts said on Friday.
Traces of VX were detected on swabs of the dead man’s face and eyes, police said. Leaked CCTV footage from the February 13 murder shows the portly Kim being approached by two women who appear to push something in his face.
Just a tiny drop of the agent is enough to fatally damage a victim’s central nervous system.
One of the two women suspects who remain in custody fell ill after the brazen killing, with police saying on Friday she had been vomiting.
National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar added atomic energy experts would sweep the airport’s busy terminal where the Cold War-era attack took place for traces of the toxin, the most deadly chemical agent ever developed, as well as other locations the women passed through.
Khalid added detectives would look for the source of the VX.
“We are investigating how it entered the country,” Khalid Abu Bakar said.
However he added that “if the amount of the chemical brought in was small, it would be difficult for us to detect.”
A leading regional security expert said it would not have been difficult to smuggle VX into Malaysia in a diplomatic pouch, which are not subject to regular customs checks
What is VX?
Code-named by the US scientists who mass produced it, VX is an organophosphate compound and one of the deadliest chemical agents ever manufactured.
What does it do?
It strikes the nervous system fast.
Where does it come from?
The compound was first created in a British laboratory in the early 1950s. But American scientists honed its potency during the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union.
Features
Odorless and clear when pure
It has the appearance of motor oil
Stable enough to be transported.
Hard to detect, an advantage for a would-be assassin.
Antidotes
There are antidotes but treatment must be immediate.
US soldiers carried kits to inject themselves with antidote during the first Iraq War.
Legal status
VX is listed a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
Deadly stuff
It lingers, potentially contaminating areas for long periods of time.
It can kill an adult weighing 70 kg with just five milligrammes on the skin.
