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Assassins review – the 'prank show' killing of North Korea's pretender

This gripping documentary explores the story of the two young women who carried out a nerve-agent attack on Kim Jong-nam

Nothing to do with the 1990 musical by Stephen Sondheim about the people throughout history who have tried to kill the US president … yet maybe this film should itself be turned into a musical or opera. It is a documentary about the extraordinary 2017 assassination of Kim Jong-nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, who had been living in exile in China and was not merely a persistent critic of the regime but seen as a possible alternative ruler.

Bizarrely, Kim Jong-nam was killed by having VX nerve agent smeared in his face in Kuala Lumpur international airport’s departure hall by two young women, Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Houng – from Indonesia and Vietnam respectively – who had been duped by North Korean agents posing as TV producers into thinking they were filming a hidden-camera prank show. The Malaysian government quickly and timidly allowed the North Koreans to go free when the regime effectively held Malaysian embassy staff hostage with their families in Pyongyang. So that left the two vulnerable young women facing a mandatory death penalty for murder, just so the Malaysian legal system could indict someone and save face.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/36fUgLk
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