Kim Jong-un’s half-brother ‘worked for the CIA before North Korean leader had him assassinated in 2017’
DESPOT KIM Jong-un’s half-brother was working as an informant for the CIA before he was assassinated in 2017, reports claim.
Kim Jong-nam gave information to the US intelligence agency and usually met his handlers in Singapore or Malaysia, according to a new book.
The new claims, which emerged in a book by Anna Fifield - a journalist at The Washington Post - shed new light on the mysterious killing.
Kim, 45, died after being smeared in the face with VX nerve agent as he waiting for a flight at Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia.
Two women, one from Indonesia and the other Vietnamese, claim they were tricked into carrying out the attack by being told it was prank for an internet video.
The assassination is widely believed to have been ordered by the North Korean government.
Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of Kim Jong-il, the previous ruler of North Korea before Kim Jong-un came to power.
Ms Fifield claims in her new book that Kim Jong-un viewed his half-brother as a potential threat, especially after he started meeting with CIA agents.
"Kim Jong Nam became an informant for the CIA, an agency with a track record of trying to bring down dictators it didn't like," Ms Fifield writes in The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un.
She cites as her source "someone with knowledge of the intelligence".
'TREACHEROUS ACT'
"His brother would have considered talking to American spies a treacherous act," she adds.
"Kim Jong-nam provided information to them, usually meeting his handlers in Singapore or Malaysia."
The book says that CCTV footage from Kim Jong-nam’s last trip to Malaysia showed him in a hotel elevator with an Asian-looking man who was reported to be a US intelligence agent.
It said Kim's backpack contained $120,000 (£95,000) in cash, which could have been payment for intelligence-related activities, or earnings from his casino businesses.
The Wall Street Journal has also reported that Kim was an informant for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
'NEXUS' BETWEEN CIA AND KIM JONG-NAM
The Journal quoted an unnamed "person knowledgeable about the matter".
The source claimed “there was a nexus (connection)" between the CIA and Kim Jong-nam.
According to the Journal, Kim had travelled to Malaysia in February 2017 to meet his CIA contact, although that may not have been the sole purpose of the trip.
"Several former U.S. officials said the half brother, who had lived outside of North Korea for many years and had no known power base in Pyongyang, was unlikely to be able to provide details of the secretive country's inner workings," the Journal said.
The former officials also said Kim Jong Nam had been almost certainly in contact with security services of other countries, particularly China's, the Journal said.
South Korean and US officials have said the North Korean authorities had ordered the assassination of Kim, who had been critical of his family's dynastic rule.
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Pyongyang has denied the allegation.
Two women were charged with poisoning Kim in February 2017.
Malaysia released Doan Thi Huong, who is Vietnamese, in May, and Indonesian Siti Aisyah in March.
