April 13, 2022 • 48 mins
North Korean spies recruit two unwitting women to kill Kim Jong-nam, going through elaborate means to avoid detection. But the ensuing calamity triggers a daring rescue — one that could, someday, change the face of North Korea.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
When Kim jong Nam was detained at Tokyo Narita International
Airport in two thousand one. The embarrassment and shame it
brought to the regime back home may have been a
stain on his character and a harbinger of his downfall,
but it may have also been the reason his death
was exposed to the world. You see, when Japanese officials
(00:33):
stopped him at the border, they took his fingerprints, fingerprints
which may have been used sixteen years later to identify
the body of a dead man in Malaysia. This would
reveal that the person North Korea insisted with Kim cho
was actually their forgotten prince Kim Chong nam. But that's
(00:55):
just one theory. Another was that Kim jong Nam's identity
was determined with the DNA test. Rumors flowed that his son,
Kim hans Hold, now a young man in his early twenties,
flew to Kuala Lampour dressed in an officer's uniform and
snuck into the morgue in the dead of night to
(01:16):
provide a DNA sample for comparison. No one knows for sure.
Malaysian officials never detailed how they confirmed the identity of
the body. We have now established that Kim Joel is
Kin Yong Nam. We have fulfil the laws on his identification.
(01:40):
But it was at this moment that Kim hans Hold,
a relatively unknown figure in the world's view, was thrust
into the international spotlight. Not much was known about him,
except for the fact that he was Kim Jong Nam's
oldest son. K Hansol grew up in Macau. Raised in
(02:03):
a capitalist paradise, he got to do things that most
North Korean boys his age could only dream of. He
dyed his hair blonde, he got ear piercings, He explored Twitter,
experimented with different religions, and even listened to Katie Perry.
Like his father before him, he'd attend private international schools
in Europe and make friends from all over the world.
(02:26):
In he began attending an international secondary school in Bosnia Herzegovina.
Living in the Balkans, Kim Hansel kept a low profile,
but when he was seventeen, he agreed to do a
television interview with Elizabeth Grain, the former Defense Minister of Finland.
(02:47):
Kim Hansl arrives smartly dressed. He wears trendy black framed glasses,
with diamond studded earrings. He's calm and composed, speaking English
with effortless fluent see. And then with that same cool
and casual demeanor, he does the unthinkable. The leader. Now
(03:08):
he is your uncle, but the very young one. Yeah. Yeah,
he's the youngest of the Verdes. How come that he
was the one to be appointed by his father. I'm
not really sure, but my dad was definitely not really
interested in politics for him. Yeah, and uh, I really
(03:32):
never met them in real life, so I really don't
know how he became a dictator. He calls his uncle
Kim Jong un a dictator. Then Kim hans Hold thanks
his parents for giving him a fresh perspective on his privilege,
acknowledging the harsh reality of many people in his home country.
(03:56):
My parents played a big role in supporting me and
always telling me, like, think about the people first before
you eat that food in front of you. Yeah, And
my mom always tried to encourage me to live the
same lifestyle as the ordinary citizens so I can have
a better understanding of the people. And my dad as
(04:19):
well always told me forget about the background and everything
and live your life and understand everything. There's a lot
of people who are hungry and always just think twice
and be thankful for what you have. Right now, the
brother of Kim Jong and dead in a blood strength
(04:41):
of a movie. You're gonna have Rother poison on his grace.
Why more creators have brothers? I'm eating Lee. In our
final episode, we dig into the audacious plot assassinate King
Jong Nam, the story of the women who killed him,
(05:02):
and what the North Korean princes untimely death meant for
his family and his firstborn son. What was the story
behind the two women who reportedly they thought they were
part of this TV show and the CIA did its
thing and somehow spirited them out of the airports, you know,
through a different entrance. This is the scopt that every
(05:25):
journalist covering North Korea wants to uncover. Where is Kim Hamzoo?
This is big brother? Kim Jong Nam was always looking
(05:49):
over his shoulder. On the day he was killed, he
was carrying twelve vials of VX antidote. He was carrying
only a bet peck, but in that back pack apparently
was an antidote to the exact kind of nerve agent
that he was exposed to and subsequently died from but
(06:11):
for some reason, when two women grabbed his face from
behind and spread a mysterious peace across his eyes and mouth,
he never thought to reach into his bag containing those
life saving cures, nor did he go to the bathroom
to wipe it off. We don't know why he didn't
use them. He did have About twenty minutes after this
(06:32):
v X two was smeared on his face, he was
able to walk to security and ask for help, and
you know, stagger to the medical clinic inside the airport.
So that's one of the many mysteries about North Korea
and Kim John Nam's death, is why he didn't use
the medicine that he had on him. If anything, even
if Kim Jong Nam was expecting an attack, he wasn't
(06:55):
expecting it to happen like this because by the time
Kim Jong Nam saw after it was too late. The
amount of v X covering his nose, mouth, and eyes
was almost one and a half times the lethal dose.
This was an extremely painful death when his organs one
(07:15):
by one failed and he was dead within twenty minutes,
and a lot of it was caught on camera, and
that shows just how sophisticated North Korea's assassination attempts have
become because decades ago they were much more crude. In
a trio of North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the
(07:37):
South Korean president Ton Do one he was visiting what
was then internationally known as Rangoon in Burma. A bomb
injured forty six people and killed twenty one, including journalists
and top Korean politicians, but the president survived. The three
(07:58):
secret agents behind the ploy did not get away. One
was shot dead, one was executed by hanging, and one
was sentenced to life in prison. That Burma bombing, suspected
to have been organized by none other than Kim Jong il,
taught North Korea a careful lesson. When it goes on
(08:21):
the attack, it must be more subtle, because the point
isn't just to kill somebody, it's to send a message.
The perpetrators, in other words, need to leave their mark
without getting caught. North Korea's assassins knew they couldn't make
(08:43):
the same old mistakes. If somebody was going to take
the fall for their dirty work, it would be somebody
who had no association with the regime at all. They
needed pawns, stooges. The more night eve, the easier to manipulate,
the better. Ct Aisha was perfect. She had never heard
(09:14):
of Kim jong Nam. She didn't even know the difference
between North and South Korea. According to an article by
journalist Doug Bob Clark and g Q, CT was from Indonesia,
born in an impoverished farming village called Rancha some More,
a simple and devoutly Muslim region known best for an
endless horizon of rice patties and herds of grazing water buffalo.
(09:38):
As a young teenager, CT devoted herself to Islam. She
wore conservative clothes and answered the daily call to prayer.
She spent most of her days knife in hand chopping turmeric, ginger,
and other spices which her father sold at local markets.
But when she saw the glitz and romance of city
(09:59):
lights on the television, she became in thralled. She vowed
to escape for a better life, and at age fourteen,
CT left for Jakarta. Jacarta, however, didn't have much use
for a fourteen year old girl with a sixth grade education.
CT didn't find the glitz or glamours she was seeking.
(10:22):
She found herself working sixteen hour days stitching knockoff clothes
and a humid, dingy sweatshop. CT worked tirelessly for a
easily fifteen cents an hour. She was rarely allowed to
take a break. Even when she was, she couldn't leave.
The door leading outside was locked during work hours, as
(10:46):
bock Clark reports, when the sweatshop owner's son began flirting
with her, CT reciprocated. It wasn't long before she got pregnant.
She married, had a baby boy, and soon was raising
the child alone. Seti struggled. The marriage collapsed, and before
(11:07):
her twentieth birthday, her ex husband's parents would take custody
of her baby. But Seti saw this as an opportunity
to make a change, to live large in the city
like she had always dreamed. She left Jakarta for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
She also left Islam. She ditched her headscarf in favor
(11:30):
of lipstick and short skirts. She started going to the
mall to bars the clubs, but she also needed money,
and soon, like thousands of other disadvantaged women in this region,
she found herself working in Kuala Lympur's underbelly at a
massage parlor. Soon she was leveraging her beauty and her
(11:54):
body to make money. Her escort name was Kelly. Most nights,
as dance music rumbled through the dense urban air, CT
and an array of other women clad in heels and
alluring outfits, walked to the Beach Club Cafe, a haunt
nestled under a canopy of skyscrapers and palm trees. That
(12:18):
was where many prostitutes and escorts looked for work and
where customers sought them out, And the pay was good.
With just a few customers, CT could make three to
four times more in a single night as a sex
worker than she used to make in a whole month
at the sweatshop. But CT did not like the work.
(12:40):
According to back Clark's article, she may have taken up
drugs like meth to face herself, her clients, and the
realities of life in Kuala Lumpur's underworld. One night, CT
was standing by the sidewalk outside the Beach club when
a cap hold up. The driver waved at CT and
(13:02):
rolled down his window. He had a request. One of
his passengers had asked him to find girls, girls who
would be comfortable smearing lotion all over strangers. But then
the taxi driver said the magic words. He'd pay as
much as a hundred dollars in Malaysian ring gets for
each video tape. That was enough to at least discuss
(13:26):
the opportunity further. The next day, the driver picked up
CT and took her to them All, where she met
a man. He was young and thin, with a short haircut.
He seemed like a straight laced, all business type. He
called himself James, and he claimed to be Japanese. James
(13:47):
explained he was filming a prank show, something in the
vein of candy camera that would play on YouTube and
it would be huge in China and Japan. It was
destined to go viral. City listened eagerly. She was desperate
to do something new with her life. She was completely
(14:08):
unaware that James was not who he said he was,
nor was she aware that the same pitch was being
given to another woman in Vietnam, a woman whose life
shared striking parallels with her own. Duan Ti Juan grew
(14:28):
up in Nia Being Vietnam, the daughter of poor farmers,
but farm life wasn't for her. She hated working with
her hands and could hardly stand the thought of butcher
and chickens. She decided that when she grew up, she
go to college instead. Juana attended a few classes in Hanoi,
(14:50):
but work was scarce, so she took the only job
she could get as a pub waitress. Hopes of becoming
a white collar professional ashed. D One worked long hours
waiting tables and quickly grew weary of the service industry.
She started entertaining bigger dreams. She wanted to be on
(15:11):
TV to become a famous actress. In she made an
appearance on national Vietnamese television when she auditioned for the
same competition Vietnam Idol, Mongo Suncho Circom Fine, Okay, she
(15:35):
didn't make it to the next round. One also made
a handful of appearances on an online prank show called QUANGBC,
but that experience, too, was short lived. Soon One was
desperate for money and she fell into the same pattern
that had Trap City. It's believed that d One became
(15:57):
an escort, but one day she got a life changing
phone call. It was a friend, Do you want to
work for a company making a short movie or funny video.
There was a guy, her friend explained, who was interested
in hiring a few aspiring actresses. He was at the
bar right now, why not come meet him? One rushed
(16:21):
to a joint called the hay Bard to meet this
talent agent. They're sitting idly at the counter. She found
a Vietnamese speaking man. He explained that he was starting
an internet prank show and it was gonna be big.
He was willing to pay an actress like Dwan up
to one thousand dollars a month. D One's heart raced,
(16:43):
but when she asked the mysterious man for his name,
he waved her off and said, just call me Mr. Why.
It's worth mentioning just how popular prank shows are in Asia.
Like reality television in the US, prank shows and wacky
(17:06):
game shows are a tent pole of television culture, especially
in Japan. Many of the show premises are kind of bonkers,
such as this prank program, which sums unsuspecting strangers through
an elevator shaft, filming their terrified reactions as they fall
to what they think is their debts but is actually
(17:28):
just a slide. There are hundreds of other shows aimed
at getting laughs by pranking unsuspecting marks. The reason these
shows flourish maybe part cultural, but it's also part legal.
In the United States, court law is strong you can
(17:52):
sue people for causing emotional distress. It's the reason you
don't see shows like Punked or Scare Tactics anymore. But
in many Eastern countries, tour payouts are prohibitively low, and
most lawyers and judges will wave off distress claims. In
other words, prank shows can prosper without much legal backlash.
(18:16):
So when James explained to CT that her job was
the smear baby oil on the faces of strangers while
he filmed it, CT didn't hesitate to do it. In
the grand scheme of public prank shows, the stunt was
pretty tame, and after all, it paid well. Her first
test run and a public mall was a glowing success,
(18:38):
landing a hundred dollars in her pocket. Meanwhile, in Hanoi,
Mr Y was training one to do the same. They
met outside of the city's opera house, and as a
test to see if Due was truly unafraid of touching
strangers in public, he pointed out a person in the
crowd and told one to kiss him on the cheek.
(18:58):
One one for it. She passed the test. Later that evening,
Mr Why took her to a coffee shop to meet
his boss. There, an older man sat sipping coffee. D
One introduced herself and asked for his name. He said
it was Hannamodi, but otherwise spoke cryptically. Back in Indonesia,
(19:23):
CT was receiving more training. In early January, surveillance footage
would capture her smearing baby oil on a stranger's face
at a hotel. Soon she was practicing the sun twice
a day and becoming more comfortable pranking strangers. Midway through training,
(19:43):
James introduced her to a friend named Chang, who was
fluent in her native language of Bahasa. With the language
barrier broken, the flirtatious Chang began stoking the young woman's ego.
You're gonna be famous. He said, The spranks are going
to take you all over the world, to Singapore, to America.
(20:05):
Even cit started bragging to her friends that she was
about to become a star. The production team began flying
CT around, testing her prank skills at various airports. The
practice sessions intensified. Chang and James brought Citi to Kuala
Lumpur and began practicing the face smearing technique at the
(20:25):
International Airport. Doubling her right to two hundred American dollars
per stunt. By early February, she had rehearsed at least
a dozen times. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, one was practicing the
same stunt in Hanoi at Noi Bay Airport. According to
Assassin's documentary, directed by Ryan White, Mr Why was a
(20:51):
demanding coach, often texting her with advice, Now, you must
be harder when you cover the eyes, hold it there
two to three seconds, and then go down the entire face.
When it sticks to the eyes, It's gonna make people
puzzled and surprised. It's a good effect for the video clip.
(21:11):
A few days later, Mr Y and Hanna Moody flew
to one to Kuala Lumpore. There she had a giant
teddy bear, the kind you might find at a carnival,
and was told to use it to rehearse the prank.
Practice with your teddy bear. All right, tomorrow, we have
a male actor and his role will be to make
(21:31):
it difficult for you. Don't let the male actor see us,
do not look straight at him. Don't be stressed abnormal.
As Doane practiced in her hotel room, CT was enjoying
a night out with friends celebrating her birthday at the
hard Rock Cafe. After blowing out the candles on a cupcake,
(21:54):
she danced into the night, unaware that her world was
about to turn up. Hide Down video shows two women
(22:14):
carrying out the airport attack with a mysterious poison Kim
Jong Na. Two women, their identities currently unknown, appear to
have rubbed poison on his face. Authorities have confirmed it
was v X nerve agent. Within hours of Kim Jong
Nam's death, Mr y Chang, Hannamoni and a fourth suspect
(22:39):
had all boarded flights out of the country. They had
changed their clothes and shaved their faces, and would land
in Kong Young before any of the news. Head James
had disappeared without a trace, and two North Koreans, the
two who had presumably helped usher the assassins through the airport,
we're now hold up in the embassy of a cross town. Meanwhile,
(23:02):
C T and Dwan waited blissfully unaware for their next prank.
In fact, two days after Kim Jong Nam died, Dwan
would return to the scene of the crime to the
airport arrivals hall. She was clueless that a major crime
had been committed their days earlier, and that her so
called prank was the cause. And unlike most criminals who
(23:26):
returned to their own crime scene, One made no attempt
to change her appearance. She wore the same shoes and
kept her hair the same style. She wandered the airport
aimlessly looking down at her phone, waiting to receive a
text from Mr. Y. So lost and confused, One tried
(23:47):
to text him, quote, I today came to airport but
did not see you there. You said today we'd make
a video clip. I don't know what to do now,
but her messages were never delivered. His phone line was disconnected.
After milling about the arrivals hall, Dwan left the airport
(24:09):
and hailed a taxi. Before she could even hop in
the cab, the airport security guards, who had recognized her
from CCTV footage from the day of the attack, detained her.
When police took due in custody, she complained that she
hadn't been paid for her last stunt. Ct was just
(24:30):
as clueless. She didn't follow the news, so when police
barged into her room at the Flamingo hotel, she too
thought it was all part of the prank show liked one.
She had no idea that someone had been assassinated at
the airport. She also had no idea that James and
Chang were in fact North Korean spies. In the Assassin's documentary,
(24:55):
c recalled, the police asked who are you? Are you
a spy? What did you do that caused that man
in the airport to die? I was confused. I didn't
understand what they meant. You are involved in the premeditated
murder of the Korean president's brother. I was shocked, you're kidding.
(25:20):
I was doing a video shoot. Is this part of
the video prank? Within days, both City and Duan were
in prison. The women didn't understand the seriousness of their
crime until they met their lawyers. The found guilty of murder.
(25:40):
Both women would have ropes strung around their necks and
they would be executed by hanging. As evidence mounted that
North Korea was responsible for the killing of Kim Jong Nam,
the DPRK's ambassador to Malaysia began in a aggressive campaign
(26:01):
of denial. He dismissed any suggestion of wrongdoing. He refused
to give up the North Koreans hiding in the embassy
he wouldn't acknowledge that Chong Nan died from a nerve agent,
and he refused to call Kim Jong Nam by his
real name, instead referring to him by the faith name
on his passport, Kim Chong. The Malaysian government responded by
(26:23):
kicking the ambassador out of the country. Peongyang returned fire
by barring all Malaysians from leaving North Korea, essentially holding
all of their diplomats hostage. The North Koreans took all
of the Malaysians in Pyongyang, which I believe was eleven
(26:43):
people in the Malaysian diplomats and their families, essentially put
them under embassy arrest and wouldn't allow them to leave
North Korea until the North Korean nationals in Malaysia had
been allowed to leave there, and then more international dominant
began to fall. Nuclear disarmament talks between the US and
(27:05):
North Korea disintegrated. Even China punished the North, refusing to
import coal from their communist cousin. By this point, the
Malaysian government was deeply embarrassed a foreign country with which
it had friendly relations had just staged a chemical attack
(27:25):
using the world's most potent chemical weapon. Within its borders
and in an international airport, no less, a space symbolically
shared by the whole world. Malaysia, in other words, was furious,
and with suspects either having escaped or enjoying the immunity
(27:45):
of the embassy, the country turned its attention to Citi
Aisha and Dwanti Jung. Somebody had to be punished for
Kim Jong Nam's death, and it would be these two
hapless women. The scene outside of shah Alarm Courthouse was chaotic.
(28:15):
A sea of cameras and reporters had gathered outside the
building's doors awaiting the arrival of c T Aisha and Blantehn.
At the time, nobody knew their stories. Many believed these
women were stealthy assassins, a duo of them fatales with
links to North Korea's innermost firings. On October two, a
(28:41):
parade of police vehicles escorted the women to the courthouse.
When they emerged, their heads were wrapped in Islamic headscarves
and their bodies draped and bulletproof vests. Armed guards ushered
them to the courthouse as the press swarmed like paparazzi,
trying to get a glimpse of the two rumored secret agents.
(29:02):
Over the following weeks, this scene played out again and again,
with the women looking more and more sullen. Midway through,
the judge read an eighty two page document declaring his
belief that the women had not been duped, but had
in fact been willing accomplices to a North Korean murder plot.
(29:24):
He asked the defense to prove its case. By this point,
it had long been established that the women had killed
Kim Jong Nam with VX nerve agent. They likely survived
because they had applied it to their palms, where the
skin is thicker, and had wiped the poison often time.
Some believe the North Koreans used v X two, an
(29:47):
agent that only activates after two separate compounds are combined.
If so, the low exposure may have helped keep the
women alive. As a trial war on to in CT
remained in custody, weeks blurred into months, months into years.
The women were confined to separate cells, but began sharing
(30:10):
stories by yelling through the bars. They started to joke
and chit chat, and, in their words, became like sisters
as their separate defenses worked their case. Neither women knew
that the highest channels of Indonesia's government were working to
free CT. Indonesia's President Joco Widodo was running for reelection
(30:34):
and CIT's trial was being closely watched by regular people
back home. The president saw her release as a way
to score political points and help his campaign, so he
applied pressure to make something happen. It worked. On the
day the women were slated to give testimony, the lead
(30:56):
prosecutors stood up and made a special announcement that the
state had decided to withdraw one of the charges, specifically
that against CT. The order came straight from the Attorney General.
According to those present, The judge looked baffled. The decision
made no sense. The evidence for and against the two
(31:18):
women was exactly the same. They both had been recruited
with the same tactics, both had attacked Kim Jong Nam
in the same way, and they had both left the
crime scene in the same manner, and nearly all of
it was captured on video. And yet CIT was being
let go while Dwin was still on trial. The judge,
(31:40):
though confused, obliged the Court is determined that C. T A,
the first defendant, is hereby released. All right, you can go.
CT stood up, hugged one and left the courtroom with
a smile. Dwan was extremely distraught. Now she was alone
(32:03):
and still facing the death penalty. The truth was government
officials in Vietnam didn't have the same motivations to freed one.
It's a communist country and it still has relations with
North Korea. It didn't want to get involved. But that
ambivalence left one trapped, facing the prospect of a terrible
(32:25):
miscarriage of justice. Her lawyers cried foul, and one month
later they got their wish. The court reached a deal.
Rather than charged one with murder and have her executed,
due would plead guilty to a charge of quote causing
harm and thus be jailed for just a few weeks.
(32:47):
When One learned of the judgment, she had but one answer,
I'm happy. One month after her sentence in May, Twantijng
for it a plane to Hanoi and returned home to
her parents. This happy ending presents a broader problem. A
(33:12):
man was murdered in public in one of the most
brutal ways imaginable. There had been multiple witnesses and everything
was caught on camera. Experts everywhere knew who was guilty,
and yet nobody was held accountable. You may recall those
(33:32):
two North Koreans hold up in the embassy. As the
hostage scenario escalated with North Korea refusing to let Malaysians leave,
the dprk in agreement was reached. Rather than arrest the
North Koreans hiding in the embassy, Malaysia would let them
all go. In return, North Korea would release the Malaysian citizens.
(33:56):
The result, no North Koreans have ever been kind of
by Malaysia for assassinating a foreign national on their soil.
The North Koreans who were in Malaysia and identified as
being complicit in this plot, all of them were released.
All of them were allowed to leave, and this is
because of hostage diplomacy, one of North Korea's great tricks.
(34:18):
There was a swap done to allow the North Koreans
to leave Malaysia without facing any punishment, and so to
this day, no North Korea has been punished as far
as we know, it was certainly not in Malaysia. To
add insult to injury, Kim Jong Nam's body was not
only returned to North Korea, but it was placed on
the same flight that transported the North Koreans who had
(34:42):
been complicit in his murder. He was dead, stowed in
the cargo hold, and there were a few feet above him,
resting easy on a flight back home, completely free of
any consequences. It was cleared in a Korea that the
assassination of Kim Jong Nam was a success. Unlike the
(35:06):
plot Kim Jong Il had stage in Burma, which had
led to a breakdown of relations, North Korea's relationship with
Malaysia quickly returned to normal. In the words of Dr
Damaso quote, the Malaysian government considered the recovery of the
relationship between Piung Yang and Kuala Lumpoor to be more
important than justice for the assassination of Kim Jong Nam.
(35:31):
For Anna Fifield, this success has enabled Kim Jong Naan
to become even more ruthless. I think we see somebody
who is willing to push boundaries, to be bold and
to um kind of shake up what we know. And
you know, he's almost daring the outside world. You know,
what are you gonna do? Yeah, it was me, what
(35:52):
are you going to do? And the world, you know,
has kind of said not much. We're going to write
a letter, you know, to quote Hans Blex from Team America,
write a letter and tell you how angry we are.
There hasn't really been much retribution beyond that. Indeed, things
would smooth over elsewhere to China would drop its retaliation.
(36:15):
The United States would hold a huge summit with former
President Donald Trump, who had started his presidency extremely critical
of Kim Jong un, but would later exchange twenty seven
letters with the Supreme leader. Telling a rally, he wrote,
be beautiful letters and did great letters. We fell in love.
The global order had looked the other way. In the
(36:39):
words of doctor Remco Brucker, an expert on North Korea
at Leiden University, quote, the international community are very good
at washing away North Korea since for them, according to
doctors Hung Un Lee, it was all part of a
calculated plan, when that North Korea has been executing for decades.
(37:01):
All three supreme leaders of North Korea have shown a
propensity two act crazy, cultivate delicocity and weirdness, and then
charm the world by dangling the possibility of peace reconciliation
and in the meantime signing agreements with no intention of
(37:25):
giving up its nuclear arsenal and buying time and a
lot of money in selling the same horse several times.
It's been a very good, successful business model for North
Korea over the past three decades. The scheme is pretty straightforward.
Act crazy, scare the world, force global powers to negotiate,
(37:49):
get sanctions lifted, or make some money. Do it again.
I would say conservatively, North Korea has one about twenty
billion dollars worth of goods cash included, all for its
repeated pledges lies. What about Team America, the United States
(38:14):
and its allies South Korean, Japan, Let's stand zero, I
would say, by the assassination of Kim Jong nam was
no longer a global outrage. It was just another strategic
piece in North Korea's puzzle, another way to extort foreign
powers into doing North Korea's bidding, another way for Kim
jongan to say, don't mess with me. He's sending a
(38:38):
message anyone anywhere in the world, I can get you
and it will hurt. And I'm sure that there are
a lot of other North Korean officials around the world
who took notice of this, and you know, would definitely
have thought twice about questioning anything Kim Jong un said.
But there's still one problem for North Korea's dear leader,
(39:01):
there remains a threat to Kim Jong UN's throne. If
(39:22):
people in North Korea could know all the facts, they
might not consider Kim Jong In a legitimate leader. Not
only was he Kim Jong Il's third son, his mother
was also Japanese and irrevocable stain on his bloodline. And
if leadership were to truly abide by Confucian principles where
(39:43):
leadership has passed down to each first male heir, then
the real leader of North Korea would not be Kim
jong n it will be the son of Kim jong Nam,
Kim hans Hole. He is a male from the Kim Fami. Really,
He therefore has the same old picture blood in his veins.
(40:04):
He's the kind of person that Kim jongnd would want
to make sure could never rival him. And that means,
like his father before him, Kim hans Hol's life is
at risk. On the day his dad was murdered, Kim
hans Hold looked outside the windows of his home in
Macau and noticed something strange, something worrying. Kim Hansold found
(40:31):
the security guard outside their house missing. Something was wrong.
And when you know North Korea, of course they're going
to come after the family too. A North Korean offender,
when it comes to treason is sent to a prison
a concentration camp with his entire family parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren.
Feeling unsafe, he picked up the phone. Kim Hansold called
(40:55):
Adrian Home, who was in the US, and sought help
running away. Adrian Hong is the leader of the Channima
Civil Defense now called Free a group dedicated to overthrowing
the North Korean regime. To date, Free Chosen had spent
most of its resources helping North Korea defectors escaped the dictatorship.
(41:15):
Kiem Hansol had met the group years earlier through a
mutual friend. On the day of his father's death, kimans
Hold would beg Adrian Hong for help. He needed a
way to escape. Adrian told Kimon's Hole to leave Macau
with his mother and sister immediately to head straight for Taipei.
(41:38):
Then Adrian called a friend, a US marine, a rock
War veteran and activist named Christopher On. Adrian called Christopher
On asking where are you On happened to be visiting
the Philippines on vacation, quite close to Kim. Christopher jumped
into action. Within twenty four hours, Christopher On met Kim
(42:03):
Ansol and his mom and his sister at the major
airport in Taiwan, Taipei. Christopher took the family to a
private airport lounge to rest. Meanwhile, Adrian was calling dignitaries
around the world asking if they would take in three
royal North Korean refugees. The Netherlands answered the call. Christopher
(42:26):
bought the family three plane tickets to Amsterdam, but when
they try to go through security, a guard stopped them,
so they returned to the airport lounge to reassess their options.
That's when two men appeared. It was the c I
a CIA folks showed up and demanded that Christopher On
(42:48):
turned over the Kim family to them. Chrissan said, no,
I've not broken any law. They don't want to go
with you, how can I trust you? So for over
twenty four hours, Christopher On stayed with Kim Mansol and
his family at the airport lounge in Taiwan, and then
purchased new tickets for the three and arranged for the
(43:08):
Kim family to be flown over to Amsterdam. The CIA
refused to let the family out of their sight, so
before the flight, Christopher gave Kim hans hold a hug
and said goodbye, handing him over to the American officials.
The CIA would escort the family through boarding and sit
(43:30):
with them on the plane Freachoisan had arranged for high
level government officials, including a Dutch human rights lawyer, to
meet Kim Jong Nam's family when they landed at Shipple
Airport in Amsterdam. At the airport, they were to be
greeted by humanitarian NGOs, but when the plane landed the
family disappeared. The CIA did its thing and somehow spirited
(43:56):
them out of the airport, you know, through a different entrance. Now,
more than five years later, nobody has seen Kim Hans
hole since, nobody outside of the CIA knows where he
or the rest of Kim Jong Nam's family is, but
it's believed there now under the protective custody of a
(44:16):
friendly nation. Where is anybody's gas? This is the scope
that every journalist covering North Korea wants to uncover. Where
is Kim Hanzol? I don't think anybody really knows. Maybe
he went to Holland, he had some links to France,
he had been at school in Belgrade. I don't know,
(44:38):
could be in France. He could be in the United States.
We don't know where he is, but we know that
he is living under the protection of a friendly state somewhere.
But as long as Kim hans Hole is alive, there
may be hope for the people of North Korea because
somewhere the true prince awaits their laws that say um
(45:03):
North and South Koreans shouldn't interact with each other even
outside of Korea. Me and my South Korean friends, uh.
At first, it was kind of awkward when I first
met them, but then a little by little, we started
understanding each other. We share our stories from back home
(45:24):
and realize how similar we are, same language, same culture,
and it's just political issues that divide the nation and half.
You can be very grateful to your parents that they
have raised you. Do think yourself, Do you have dreams
(45:44):
or that you could go back to Rock Korea and
try to do something to influence in a good way. Yeah,
of course. I've always dreamed that one day I will
go back and make things better and makes it easier
for the people there. I also dream of unification. Big
(46:18):
Brother is a production of School of Humans and I
Heart Radio and hosted by me Eaeden Lee Lucas Riley
is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia Brock
is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive producers
are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English.
Our fact checkers are Austin Thompson and Aaron Blakemore Music
(46:41):
composed by Jason Todd, Shannon and Tunewilders. Original score mixed
by Vic Stafford, Audio editing by Jesse Nice Swanger sound
design and mixed by Harper W. Harris, Audio correction by
Josh Fisher. Voice acting and Big Brother performed by Mark
Chung Junior, June Sage, Kim Gray, Sean McKeith, Jennifer's son Bell,
(47:05):
Mike Coscarelli, Daniel Kim, Judy, Alice Lee, Beauty, Nam, Katie Wong,
Jason Todd, Shannon, Ben Hols, Thiago Lima and Daniels hen Kim.
Production support was provided by Lauren Kelly, and our logo
illustration was designed by Lucy Kingtonia. We'd like to recognize
(47:27):
the work of Suki Kim, Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Doug Bock,
Clark and jog Come and give special thanks to Ryan Murdoch,
Will Pearson and Daisy Church. A sincere thank you to
Henry Gimmetti and Exel Hochstrom of parad Media, and a
heartfelt acknowledgement to all of our experts, Sandra Fahey, Anna Fifield,
(47:50):
Sue Kim Tongue, Mune Lee, Bradley Martin, Michael Madden, Jenny Town,
and Benjamin Young. Sound for Big Brother was licensed from
the Seated Press, Jean France Press, Reuters, The Star, Malaysia,
Keene t V, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, c SPAN,
Freesound dot Org, and Critical Past. If you enjoyed the podcast,
(48:14):
help us get the word out by leaving a rating
in your favorite podcast app. I'm Eating Lee and this
is Big Brother. Thanks for listening. School of Humans
When Kim jong Nam was detained at Tokyo Narita International
Airport in two thousand one. The embarrassment and shame it
brought to the regime back home may have been a
stain on his character and a harbinger of his downfall,
but it may have also been the reason his death
was exposed to the world. You see, when Japanese officials
(00:33):
stopped him at the border, they took his fingerprints, fingerprints
which may have been used sixteen years later to identify
the body of a dead man in Malaysia. This would
reveal that the person North Korea insisted with Kim cho
was actually their forgotten prince Kim Chong nam. But that's
(00:55):
just one theory. Another was that Kim jong Nam's identity
was determined with the DNA test. Rumors flowed that his son,
Kim hans Hold, now a young man in his early twenties,
flew to Kuala Lampour dressed in an officer's uniform and
snuck into the morgue in the dead of night to
(01:16):
provide a DNA sample for comparison. No one knows for sure.
Malaysian officials never detailed how they confirmed the identity of
the body. We have now established that Kim Joel is
Kin Yong Nam. We have fulfil the laws on his identification.
(01:40):
But it was at this moment that Kim hans Hold,
a relatively unknown figure in the world's view, was thrust
into the international spotlight. Not much was known about him,
except for the fact that he was Kim Jong Nam's
oldest son. K Hansol grew up in Macau. Raised in
(02:03):
a capitalist paradise, he got to do things that most
North Korean boys his age could only dream of. He
dyed his hair blonde, he got ear piercings, He explored Twitter,
experimented with different religions, and even listened to Katie Perry.
Like his father before him, he'd attend private international schools
in Europe and make friends from all over the world.
(02:26):
In he began attending an international secondary school in Bosnia Herzegovina.
Living in the Balkans, Kim Hansel kept a low profile,
but when he was seventeen, he agreed to do a
television interview with Elizabeth Grain, the former Defense Minister of Finland.
(02:47):
Kim Hansl arrives smartly dressed. He wears trendy black framed glasses,
with diamond studded earrings. He's calm and composed, speaking English
with effortless fluent see. And then with that same cool
and casual demeanor, he does the unthinkable. The leader. Now
(03:08):
he is your uncle, but the very young one. Yeah. Yeah,
he's the youngest of the Verdes. How come that he
was the one to be appointed by his father. I'm
not really sure, but my dad was definitely not really
interested in politics for him. Yeah, and uh, I really
(03:32):
never met them in real life, so I really don't
know how he became a dictator. He calls his uncle
Kim Jong un a dictator. Then Kim hans Hold thanks
his parents for giving him a fresh perspective on his privilege,
acknowledging the harsh reality of many people in his home country.
(03:56):
My parents played a big role in supporting me and
always telling me, like, think about the people first before
you eat that food in front of you. Yeah, And
my mom always tried to encourage me to live the
same lifestyle as the ordinary citizens so I can have
a better understanding of the people. And my dad as
(04:19):
well always told me forget about the background and everything
and live your life and understand everything. There's a lot
of people who are hungry and always just think twice
and be thankful for what you have. Right now, the
brother of Kim Jong and dead in a blood strength
(04:41):
of a movie. You're gonna have Rother poison on his grace.
Why more creators have brothers? I'm eating Lee. In our
final episode, we dig into the audacious plot assassinate King
Jong Nam, the story of the women who killed him,
(05:02):
and what the North Korean princes untimely death meant for
his family and his firstborn son. What was the story
behind the two women who reportedly they thought they were
part of this TV show and the CIA did its
thing and somehow spirited them out of the airports, you know,
through a different entrance. This is the scopt that every
(05:25):
journalist covering North Korea wants to uncover. Where is Kim Hamzoo?
This is big brother? Kim Jong Nam was always looking
(05:49):
over his shoulder. On the day he was killed, he
was carrying twelve vials of VX antidote. He was carrying
only a bet peck, but in that back pack apparently
was an antidote to the exact kind of nerve agent
that he was exposed to and subsequently died from but
(06:11):
for some reason, when two women grabbed his face from
behind and spread a mysterious peace across his eyes and mouth,
he never thought to reach into his bag containing those
life saving cures, nor did he go to the bathroom
to wipe it off. We don't know why he didn't
use them. He did have About twenty minutes after this
(06:32):
v X two was smeared on his face, he was
able to walk to security and ask for help, and
you know, stagger to the medical clinic inside the airport.
So that's one of the many mysteries about North Korea
and Kim John Nam's death, is why he didn't use
the medicine that he had on him. If anything, even
if Kim Jong Nam was expecting an attack, he wasn't
(06:55):
expecting it to happen like this because by the time
Kim Jong Nam saw after it was too late. The
amount of v X covering his nose, mouth, and eyes
was almost one and a half times the lethal dose.
This was an extremely painful death when his organs one
(07:15):
by one failed and he was dead within twenty minutes,
and a lot of it was caught on camera, and
that shows just how sophisticated North Korea's assassination attempts have
become because decades ago they were much more crude. In
a trio of North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the
(07:37):
South Korean president Ton Do one he was visiting what
was then internationally known as Rangoon in Burma. A bomb
injured forty six people and killed twenty one, including journalists
and top Korean politicians, but the president survived. The three
(07:58):
secret agents behind the ploy did not get away. One
was shot dead, one was executed by hanging, and one
was sentenced to life in prison. That Burma bombing, suspected
to have been organized by none other than Kim Jong il,
taught North Korea a careful lesson. When it goes on
(08:21):
the attack, it must be more subtle, because the point
isn't just to kill somebody, it's to send a message.
The perpetrators, in other words, need to leave their mark
without getting caught. North Korea's assassins knew they couldn't make
(08:43):
the same old mistakes. If somebody was going to take
the fall for their dirty work, it would be somebody
who had no association with the regime at all. They
needed pawns, stooges. The more night eve, the easier to manipulate,
the better. Ct Aisha was perfect. She had never heard
(09:14):
of Kim jong Nam. She didn't even know the difference
between North and South Korea. According to an article by
journalist Doug Bob Clark and g Q, CT was from Indonesia,
born in an impoverished farming village called Rancha some More,
a simple and devoutly Muslim region known best for an
endless horizon of rice patties and herds of grazing water buffalo.
(09:38):
As a young teenager, CT devoted herself to Islam. She
wore conservative clothes and answered the daily call to prayer.
She spent most of her days knife in hand chopping turmeric, ginger,
and other spices which her father sold at local markets.
But when she saw the glitz and romance of city
(09:59):
lights on the television, she became in thralled. She vowed
to escape for a better life, and at age fourteen,
CT left for Jakarta. Jacarta, however, didn't have much use
for a fourteen year old girl with a sixth grade education.
CT didn't find the glitz or glamours she was seeking.
(10:22):
She found herself working sixteen hour days stitching knockoff clothes
and a humid, dingy sweatshop. CT worked tirelessly for a
easily fifteen cents an hour. She was rarely allowed to
take a break. Even when she was, she couldn't leave.
The door leading outside was locked during work hours, as
(10:46):
bock Clark reports, when the sweatshop owner's son began flirting
with her, CT reciprocated. It wasn't long before she got pregnant.
She married, had a baby boy, and soon was raising
the child alone. Seti struggled. The marriage collapsed, and before
(11:07):
her twentieth birthday, her ex husband's parents would take custody
of her baby. But Seti saw this as an opportunity
to make a change, to live large in the city
like she had always dreamed. She left Jakarta for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
She also left Islam. She ditched her headscarf in favor
(11:30):
of lipstick and short skirts. She started going to the
mall to bars the clubs, but she also needed money,
and soon, like thousands of other disadvantaged women in this region,
she found herself working in Kuala Lympur's underbelly at a
massage parlor. Soon she was leveraging her beauty and her
(11:54):
body to make money. Her escort name was Kelly. Most nights,
as dance music rumbled through the dense urban air, CT
and an array of other women clad in heels and
alluring outfits, walked to the Beach Club Cafe, a haunt
nestled under a canopy of skyscrapers and palm trees. That
(12:18):
was where many prostitutes and escorts looked for work and
where customers sought them out, And the pay was good.
With just a few customers, CT could make three to
four times more in a single night as a sex
worker than she used to make in a whole month
at the sweatshop. But CT did not like the work.
(12:40):
According to back Clark's article, she may have taken up
drugs like meth to face herself, her clients, and the
realities of life in Kuala Lumpur's underworld. One night, CT
was standing by the sidewalk outside the Beach club when
a cap hold up. The driver waved at CT and
(13:02):
rolled down his window. He had a request. One of
his passengers had asked him to find girls, girls who
would be comfortable smearing lotion all over strangers. But then
the taxi driver said the magic words. He'd pay as
much as a hundred dollars in Malaysian ring gets for
each video tape. That was enough to at least discuss
(13:26):
the opportunity further. The next day, the driver picked up
CT and took her to them All, where she met
a man. He was young and thin, with a short haircut.
He seemed like a straight laced, all business type. He
called himself James, and he claimed to be Japanese. James
(13:47):
explained he was filming a prank show, something in the
vein of candy camera that would play on YouTube and
it would be huge in China and Japan. It was
destined to go viral. City listened eagerly. She was desperate
to do something new with her life. She was completely
(14:08):
unaware that James was not who he said he was,
nor was she aware that the same pitch was being
given to another woman in Vietnam, a woman whose life
shared striking parallels with her own. Duan Ti Juan grew
(14:28):
up in Nia Being Vietnam, the daughter of poor farmers,
but farm life wasn't for her. She hated working with
her hands and could hardly stand the thought of butcher
and chickens. She decided that when she grew up, she
go to college instead. Juana attended a few classes in Hanoi,
(14:50):
but work was scarce, so she took the only job
she could get as a pub waitress. Hopes of becoming
a white collar professional ashed. D One worked long hours
waiting tables and quickly grew weary of the service industry.
She started entertaining bigger dreams. She wanted to be on
(15:11):
TV to become a famous actress. In she made an
appearance on national Vietnamese television when she auditioned for the
same competition Vietnam Idol, Mongo Suncho Circom Fine, Okay, she
(15:35):
didn't make it to the next round. One also made
a handful of appearances on an online prank show called QUANGBC,
but that experience, too, was short lived. Soon One was
desperate for money and she fell into the same pattern
that had Trap City. It's believed that d One became
(15:57):
an escort, but one day she got a life changing
phone call. It was a friend, Do you want to
work for a company making a short movie or funny video.
There was a guy, her friend explained, who was interested
in hiring a few aspiring actresses. He was at the
bar right now, why not come meet him? One rushed
(16:21):
to a joint called the hay Bard to meet this
talent agent. They're sitting idly at the counter. She found
a Vietnamese speaking man. He explained that he was starting
an internet prank show and it was gonna be big.
He was willing to pay an actress like Dwan up
to one thousand dollars a month. D One's heart raced,
(16:43):
but when she asked the mysterious man for his name,
he waved her off and said, just call me Mr. Why.
It's worth mentioning just how popular prank shows are in Asia.
Like reality television in the US, prank shows and wacky
(17:06):
game shows are a tent pole of television culture, especially
in Japan. Many of the show premises are kind of bonkers,
such as this prank program, which sums unsuspecting strangers through
an elevator shaft, filming their terrified reactions as they fall
to what they think is their debts but is actually
(17:28):
just a slide. There are hundreds of other shows aimed
at getting laughs by pranking unsuspecting marks. The reason these
shows flourish maybe part cultural, but it's also part legal.
In the United States, court law is strong you can
(17:52):
sue people for causing emotional distress. It's the reason you
don't see shows like Punked or Scare Tactics anymore. But
in many Eastern countries, tour payouts are prohibitively low, and
most lawyers and judges will wave off distress claims. In
other words, prank shows can prosper without much legal backlash.
(18:16):
So when James explained to CT that her job was
the smear baby oil on the faces of strangers while
he filmed it, CT didn't hesitate to do it. In
the grand scheme of public prank shows, the stunt was
pretty tame, and after all, it paid well. Her first
test run and a public mall was a glowing success,
(18:38):
landing a hundred dollars in her pocket. Meanwhile, in Hanoi,
Mr Y was training one to do the same. They
met outside of the city's opera house, and as a
test to see if Due was truly unafraid of touching
strangers in public, he pointed out a person in the
crowd and told one to kiss him on the cheek.
(18:58):
One one for it. She passed the test. Later that evening,
Mr Why took her to a coffee shop to meet
his boss. There, an older man sat sipping coffee. D
One introduced herself and asked for his name. He said
it was Hannamodi, but otherwise spoke cryptically. Back in Indonesia,
(19:23):
CT was receiving more training. In early January, surveillance footage
would capture her smearing baby oil on a stranger's face
at a hotel. Soon she was practicing the sun twice
a day and becoming more comfortable pranking strangers. Midway through training,
(19:43):
James introduced her to a friend named Chang, who was
fluent in her native language of Bahasa. With the language
barrier broken, the flirtatious Chang began stoking the young woman's ego.
You're gonna be famous. He said, The spranks are going
to take you all over the world, to Singapore, to America.
(20:05):
Even cit started bragging to her friends that she was
about to become a star. The production team began flying
CT around, testing her prank skills at various airports. The
practice sessions intensified. Chang and James brought Citi to Kuala
Lumpur and began practicing the face smearing technique at the
(20:25):
International Airport. Doubling her right to two hundred American dollars
per stunt. By early February, she had rehearsed at least
a dozen times. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, one was practicing the
same stunt in Hanoi at Noi Bay Airport. According to
Assassin's documentary, directed by Ryan White, Mr Why was a
(20:51):
demanding coach, often texting her with advice, Now, you must
be harder when you cover the eyes, hold it there
two to three seconds, and then go down the entire face.
When it sticks to the eyes, It's gonna make people
puzzled and surprised. It's a good effect for the video clip.
(21:11):
A few days later, Mr Y and Hanna Moody flew
to one to Kuala Lumpore. There she had a giant
teddy bear, the kind you might find at a carnival,
and was told to use it to rehearse the prank.
Practice with your teddy bear. All right, tomorrow, we have
a male actor and his role will be to make
(21:31):
it difficult for you. Don't let the male actor see us,
do not look straight at him. Don't be stressed abnormal.
As Doane practiced in her hotel room, CT was enjoying
a night out with friends celebrating her birthday at the
hard Rock Cafe. After blowing out the candles on a cupcake,
(21:54):
she danced into the night, unaware that her world was
about to turn up. Hide Down video shows two women
(22:14):
carrying out the airport attack with a mysterious poison Kim
Jong Na. Two women, their identities currently unknown, appear to
have rubbed poison on his face. Authorities have confirmed it
was v X nerve agent. Within hours of Kim Jong
Nam's death, Mr y Chang, Hannamoni and a fourth suspect
(22:39):
had all boarded flights out of the country. They had
changed their clothes and shaved their faces, and would land
in Kong Young before any of the news. Head James
had disappeared without a trace, and two North Koreans, the
two who had presumably helped usher the assassins through the airport,
we're now hold up in the embassy of a cross town. Meanwhile,
(23:02):
C T and Dwan waited blissfully unaware for their next prank.
In fact, two days after Kim Jong Nam died, Dwan
would return to the scene of the crime to the
airport arrivals hall. She was clueless that a major crime
had been committed their days earlier, and that her so
called prank was the cause. And unlike most criminals who
(23:26):
returned to their own crime scene, One made no attempt
to change her appearance. She wore the same shoes and
kept her hair the same style. She wandered the airport
aimlessly looking down at her phone, waiting to receive a
text from Mr. Y. So lost and confused, One tried
(23:47):
to text him, quote, I today came to airport but
did not see you there. You said today we'd make
a video clip. I don't know what to do now,
but her messages were never delivered. His phone line was disconnected.
After milling about the arrivals hall, Dwan left the airport
(24:09):
and hailed a taxi. Before she could even hop in
the cab, the airport security guards, who had recognized her
from CCTV footage from the day of the attack, detained her.
When police took due in custody, she complained that she
hadn't been paid for her last stunt. Ct was just
(24:30):
as clueless. She didn't follow the news, so when police
barged into her room at the Flamingo hotel, she too
thought it was all part of the prank show liked one.
She had no idea that someone had been assassinated at
the airport. She also had no idea that James and
Chang were in fact North Korean spies. In the Assassin's documentary,
(24:55):
c recalled, the police asked who are you? Are you
a spy? What did you do that caused that man
in the airport to die? I was confused. I didn't
understand what they meant. You are involved in the premeditated
murder of the Korean president's brother. I was shocked, you're kidding.
(25:20):
I was doing a video shoot. Is this part of
the video prank? Within days, both City and Duan were
in prison. The women didn't understand the seriousness of their
crime until they met their lawyers. The found guilty of murder.
(25:40):
Both women would have ropes strung around their necks and
they would be executed by hanging. As evidence mounted that
North Korea was responsible for the killing of Kim Jong Nam,
the DPRK's ambassador to Malaysia began in a aggressive campaign
(26:01):
of denial. He dismissed any suggestion of wrongdoing. He refused
to give up the North Koreans hiding in the embassy
he wouldn't acknowledge that Chong Nan died from a nerve agent,
and he refused to call Kim Jong Nam by his
real name, instead referring to him by the faith name
on his passport, Kim Chong. The Malaysian government responded by
(26:23):
kicking the ambassador out of the country. Peongyang returned fire
by barring all Malaysians from leaving North Korea, essentially holding
all of their diplomats hostage. The North Koreans took all
of the Malaysians in Pyongyang, which I believe was eleven
(26:43):
people in the Malaysian diplomats and their families, essentially put
them under embassy arrest and wouldn't allow them to leave
North Korea until the North Korean nationals in Malaysia had
been allowed to leave there, and then more international dominant
began to fall. Nuclear disarmament talks between the US and
(27:05):
North Korea disintegrated. Even China punished the North, refusing to
import coal from their communist cousin. By this point, the
Malaysian government was deeply embarrassed a foreign country with which
it had friendly relations had just staged a chemical attack
(27:25):
using the world's most potent chemical weapon. Within its borders
and in an international airport, no less, a space symbolically
shared by the whole world. Malaysia, in other words, was furious,
and with suspects either having escaped or enjoying the immunity
(27:45):
of the embassy, the country turned its attention to Citi
Aisha and Dwanti Jung. Somebody had to be punished for
Kim Jong Nam's death, and it would be these two
hapless women. The scene outside of shah Alarm Courthouse was chaotic.
(28:15):
A sea of cameras and reporters had gathered outside the
building's doors awaiting the arrival of c T Aisha and Blantehn.
At the time, nobody knew their stories. Many believed these
women were stealthy assassins, a duo of them fatales with
links to North Korea's innermost firings. On October two, a
(28:41):
parade of police vehicles escorted the women to the courthouse.
When they emerged, their heads were wrapped in Islamic headscarves
and their bodies draped and bulletproof vests. Armed guards ushered
them to the courthouse as the press swarmed like paparazzi,
trying to get a glimpse of the two rumored secret agents.
(29:02):
Over the following weeks, this scene played out again and again,
with the women looking more and more sullen. Midway through,
the judge read an eighty two page document declaring his
belief that the women had not been duped, but had
in fact been willing accomplices to a North Korean murder plot.
(29:24):
He asked the defense to prove its case. By this point,
it had long been established that the women had killed
Kim Jong Nam with VX nerve agent. They likely survived
because they had applied it to their palms, where the
skin is thicker, and had wiped the poison often time.
Some believe the North Koreans used v X two, an
(29:47):
agent that only activates after two separate compounds are combined.
If so, the low exposure may have helped keep the
women alive. As a trial war on to in CT
remained in custody, weeks blurred into months, months into years.
The women were confined to separate cells, but began sharing
(30:10):
stories by yelling through the bars. They started to joke
and chit chat, and, in their words, became like sisters
as their separate defenses worked their case. Neither women knew
that the highest channels of Indonesia's government were working to
free CT. Indonesia's President Joco Widodo was running for reelection
(30:34):
and CIT's trial was being closely watched by regular people
back home. The president saw her release as a way
to score political points and help his campaign, so he
applied pressure to make something happen. It worked. On the
day the women were slated to give testimony, the lead
(30:56):
prosecutors stood up and made a special announcement that the
state had decided to withdraw one of the charges, specifically
that against CT. The order came straight from the Attorney General.
According to those present, The judge looked baffled. The decision
made no sense. The evidence for and against the two
(31:18):
women was exactly the same. They both had been recruited
with the same tactics, both had attacked Kim Jong Nam
in the same way, and they had both left the
crime scene in the same manner, and nearly all of
it was captured on video. And yet CIT was being
let go while Dwin was still on trial. The judge,
(31:40):
though confused, obliged the Court is determined that C. T A,
the first defendant, is hereby released. All right, you can go.
CT stood up, hugged one and left the courtroom with
a smile. Dwan was extremely distraught. Now she was alone
(32:03):
and still facing the death penalty. The truth was government
officials in Vietnam didn't have the same motivations to freed one.
It's a communist country and it still has relations with
North Korea. It didn't want to get involved. But that
ambivalence left one trapped, facing the prospect of a terrible
(32:25):
miscarriage of justice. Her lawyers cried foul, and one month
later they got their wish. The court reached a deal.
Rather than charged one with murder and have her executed,
due would plead guilty to a charge of quote causing
harm and thus be jailed for just a few weeks.
(32:47):
When One learned of the judgment, she had but one answer,
I'm happy. One month after her sentence in May, Twantijng
for it a plane to Hanoi and returned home to
her parents. This happy ending presents a broader problem. A
(33:12):
man was murdered in public in one of the most
brutal ways imaginable. There had been multiple witnesses and everything
was caught on camera. Experts everywhere knew who was guilty,
and yet nobody was held accountable. You may recall those
(33:32):
two North Koreans hold up in the embassy. As the
hostage scenario escalated with North Korea refusing to let Malaysians leave,
the dprk in agreement was reached. Rather than arrest the
North Koreans hiding in the embassy, Malaysia would let them
all go. In return, North Korea would release the Malaysian citizens.
(33:56):
The result, no North Koreans have ever been kind of
by Malaysia for assassinating a foreign national on their soil.
The North Koreans who were in Malaysia and identified as
being complicit in this plot, all of them were released.
All of them were allowed to leave, and this is
because of hostage diplomacy, one of North Korea's great tricks.
(34:18):
There was a swap done to allow the North Koreans
to leave Malaysia without facing any punishment, and so to
this day, no North Korea has been punished as far
as we know, it was certainly not in Malaysia. To
add insult to injury, Kim Jong Nam's body was not
only returned to North Korea, but it was placed on
the same flight that transported the North Koreans who had
(34:42):
been complicit in his murder. He was dead, stowed in
the cargo hold, and there were a few feet above him,
resting easy on a flight back home, completely free of
any consequences. It was cleared in a Korea that the
assassination of Kim Jong Nam was a success. Unlike the
(35:06):
plot Kim Jong Il had stage in Burma, which had
led to a breakdown of relations, North Korea's relationship with
Malaysia quickly returned to normal. In the words of Dr
Damaso quote, the Malaysian government considered the recovery of the
relationship between Piung Yang and Kuala Lumpoor to be more
important than justice for the assassination of Kim Jong Nam.
(35:31):
For Anna Fifield, this success has enabled Kim Jong Naan
to become even more ruthless. I think we see somebody
who is willing to push boundaries, to be bold and
to um kind of shake up what we know. And
you know, he's almost daring the outside world. You know,
what are you gonna do? Yeah, it was me, what
(35:52):
are you going to do? And the world, you know,
has kind of said not much. We're going to write
a letter, you know, to quote Hans Blex from Team America,
write a letter and tell you how angry we are.
There hasn't really been much retribution beyond that. Indeed, things
would smooth over elsewhere to China would drop its retaliation.
(36:15):
The United States would hold a huge summit with former
President Donald Trump, who had started his presidency extremely critical
of Kim Jong un, but would later exchange twenty seven
letters with the Supreme leader. Telling a rally, he wrote,
be beautiful letters and did great letters. We fell in love.
The global order had looked the other way. In the
(36:39):
words of doctor Remco Brucker, an expert on North Korea
at Leiden University, quote, the international community are very good
at washing away North Korea since for them, according to
doctors Hung Un Lee, it was all part of a
calculated plan, when that North Korea has been executing for decades.
(37:01):
All three supreme leaders of North Korea have shown a
propensity two act crazy, cultivate delicocity and weirdness, and then
charm the world by dangling the possibility of peace reconciliation
and in the meantime signing agreements with no intention of
(37:25):
giving up its nuclear arsenal and buying time and a
lot of money in selling the same horse several times.
It's been a very good, successful business model for North
Korea over the past three decades. The scheme is pretty straightforward.
Act crazy, scare the world, force global powers to negotiate,
(37:49):
get sanctions lifted, or make some money. Do it again.
I would say conservatively, North Korea has one about twenty
billion dollars worth of goods cash included, all for its
repeated pledges lies. What about Team America, the United States
(38:14):
and its allies South Korean, Japan, Let's stand zero, I
would say, by the assassination of Kim Jong nam was
no longer a global outrage. It was just another strategic
piece in North Korea's puzzle, another way to extort foreign
powers into doing North Korea's bidding, another way for Kim
jongan to say, don't mess with me. He's sending a
(38:38):
message anyone anywhere in the world, I can get you
and it will hurt. And I'm sure that there are
a lot of other North Korean officials around the world
who took notice of this, and you know, would definitely
have thought twice about questioning anything Kim Jong un said.
But there's still one problem for North Korea's dear leader,
(39:01):
there remains a threat to Kim Jong UN's throne. If
(39:22):
people in North Korea could know all the facts, they
might not consider Kim Jong In a legitimate leader. Not
only was he Kim Jong Il's third son, his mother
was also Japanese and irrevocable stain on his bloodline. And
if leadership were to truly abide by Confucian principles where
(39:43):
leadership has passed down to each first male heir, then
the real leader of North Korea would not be Kim
jong n it will be the son of Kim jong Nam,
Kim hans Hole. He is a male from the Kim Fami. Really,
He therefore has the same old picture blood in his veins.
(40:04):
He's the kind of person that Kim jongnd would want
to make sure could never rival him. And that means,
like his father before him, Kim hans Hol's life is
at risk. On the day his dad was murdered, Kim
hans Hold looked outside the windows of his home in
Macau and noticed something strange, something worrying. Kim Hansold found
(40:31):
the security guard outside their house missing. Something was wrong.
And when you know North Korea, of course they're going
to come after the family too. A North Korean offender,
when it comes to treason is sent to a prison
a concentration camp with his entire family parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren.
Feeling unsafe, he picked up the phone. Kim Hansold called
(40:55):
Adrian Home, who was in the US, and sought help
running away. Adrian Hong is the leader of the Channima
Civil Defense now called Free a group dedicated to overthrowing
the North Korean regime. To date, Free Chosen had spent
most of its resources helping North Korea defectors escaped the dictatorship.
(41:15):
Kiem Hansol had met the group years earlier through a
mutual friend. On the day of his father's death, kimans
Hold would beg Adrian Hong for help. He needed a
way to escape. Adrian told Kimon's Hole to leave Macau
with his mother and sister immediately to head straight for Taipei.
(41:38):
Then Adrian called a friend, a US marine, a rock
War veteran and activist named Christopher On. Adrian called Christopher
On asking where are you On happened to be visiting
the Philippines on vacation, quite close to Kim. Christopher jumped
into action. Within twenty four hours, Christopher On met Kim
(42:03):
Ansol and his mom and his sister at the major
airport in Taiwan, Taipei. Christopher took the family to a
private airport lounge to rest. Meanwhile, Adrian was calling dignitaries
around the world asking if they would take in three
royal North Korean refugees. The Netherlands answered the call. Christopher
(42:26):
bought the family three plane tickets to Amsterdam, but when
they try to go through security, a guard stopped them,
so they returned to the airport lounge to reassess their options.
That's when two men appeared. It was the c I
a CIA folks showed up and demanded that Christopher On
(42:48):
turned over the Kim family to them. Chrissan said, no,
I've not broken any law. They don't want to go
with you, how can I trust you? So for over
twenty four hours, Christopher On stayed with Kim Mansol and
his family at the airport lounge in Taiwan, and then
purchased new tickets for the three and arranged for the
(43:08):
Kim family to be flown over to Amsterdam. The CIA
refused to let the family out of their sight, so
before the flight, Christopher gave Kim hans hold a hug
and said goodbye, handing him over to the American officials.
The CIA would escort the family through boarding and sit
(43:30):
with them on the plane Freachoisan had arranged for high
level government officials, including a Dutch human rights lawyer, to
meet Kim Jong Nam's family when they landed at Shipple
Airport in Amsterdam. At the airport, they were to be
greeted by humanitarian NGOs, but when the plane landed the
family disappeared. The CIA did its thing and somehow spirited
(43:56):
them out of the airport, you know, through a different entrance. Now,
more than five years later, nobody has seen Kim Hans
hole since, nobody outside of the CIA knows where he
or the rest of Kim Jong Nam's family is, but
it's believed there now under the protective custody of a
(44:16):
friendly nation. Where is anybody's gas? This is the scope
that every journalist covering North Korea wants to uncover. Where
is Kim Hanzol? I don't think anybody really knows. Maybe
he went to Holland, he had some links to France,
he had been at school in Belgrade. I don't know,
(44:38):
could be in France. He could be in the United States.
We don't know where he is, but we know that
he is living under the protection of a friendly state somewhere.
But as long as Kim hans Hole is alive, there
may be hope for the people of North Korea because
somewhere the true prince awaits their laws that say um
(45:03):
North and South Koreans shouldn't interact with each other even
outside of Korea. Me and my South Korean friends, uh.
At first, it was kind of awkward when I first
met them, but then a little by little, we started
understanding each other. We share our stories from back home
(45:24):
and realize how similar we are, same language, same culture,
and it's just political issues that divide the nation and half.
You can be very grateful to your parents that they
have raised you. Do think yourself, Do you have dreams
(45:44):
or that you could go back to Rock Korea and
try to do something to influence in a good way. Yeah,
of course. I've always dreamed that one day I will
go back and make things better and makes it easier
for the people there. I also dream of unification. Big
(46:18):
Brother is a production of School of Humans and I
Heart Radio and hosted by me Eaeden Lee Lucas Riley
is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia Brock
is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive producers
are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English.
Our fact checkers are Austin Thompson and Aaron Blakemore Music
(46:41):
composed by Jason Todd, Shannon and Tunewilders. Original score mixed
by Vic Stafford, Audio editing by Jesse Nice Swanger sound
design and mixed by Harper W. Harris, Audio correction by
Josh Fisher. Voice acting and Big Brother performed by Mark
Chung Junior, June Sage, Kim Gray, Sean McKeith, Jennifer's son Bell,
(47:05):
Mike Coscarelli, Daniel Kim, Judy, Alice Lee, Beauty, Nam, Katie Wong,
Jason Todd, Shannon, Ben Hols, Thiago Lima and Daniels hen Kim.
Production support was provided by Lauren Kelly, and our logo
illustration was designed by Lucy Kingtonia. We'd like to recognize
(47:27):
the work of Suki Kim, Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Doug Bock,
Clark and jog Come and give special thanks to Ryan Murdoch,
Will Pearson and Daisy Church. A sincere thank you to
Henry Gimmetti and Exel Hochstrom of parad Media, and a
heartfelt acknowledgement to all of our experts, Sandra Fahey, Anna Fifield,
(47:50):
Sue Kim Tongue, Mune Lee, Bradley Martin, Michael Madden, Jenny Town,
and Benjamin Young. Sound for Big Brother was licensed from
the Seated Press, Jean France Press, Reuters, The Star, Malaysia,
Keene t V, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, c SPAN,
Freesound dot Org, and Critical Past. If you enjoyed the podcast,
(48:14):
help us get the word out by leaving a rating
in your favorite podcast app. I'm Eating Lee and this
is Big Brother. Thanks for listening. School of Humans
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