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