Police in Malaysia have released a North Korean man held in connection with the airport murder of Kim Jong Nam.
ADVERTISEMENTA North Korean man held in connection with the murder of Kim Jong Nam has been released by police in Malaysia.
Ri Jong Chol, 45, has been freed due to a lack of evidence and is expected to be deported over immigration offences.
He is the only North Korean to face questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader.
A Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman have already appeared in court charged with murder.
They are accused of smearing VX, the world’s deadliest nerve agent, on Kim Jong Nam’s face in the middle of Kuala Lumpur airport last month.
The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is widely suspected to have ordered the bizarre killing of his exiled half-brother, something Pyongyang has described as an absurdity.
Malaysia has condemned the use of VX, a chemical classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.
The ministry said it is in close contact with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an inter-governmental organisation based in the Netherlands, regarding the incident.
Relations between Malaysia and North Korea, who have maintained friendly ties for decades, have soured since the killing of Kim Jong Nam.