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Workers disinfect Kuala Lumpur International Airport of any traces of nerve gas

The North Korean men who are suspected of having orchestrated the killing of Kim Jong-nam, 46, asked staff at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia whether the airport security cameras were working before the crime, Japanese newspaper the Mainichi Shimbun reported on Feb. 27.

The North Korean men, who are on the Malaysian police’s wanted list, asked staff at the Kuala Lumpur airport whether the security cameras were operating, upon which the employees indicted that they were not, the newspaper said, quoting an anonymous source in intelligence who is familiar with information on North Korea. The airport staff reportedly lied since they had been trained to say the opposite of the truth when asked such a question. The newspaper reported that the North Korean men may have let their guard down after being given this false response.

Reuters reported on Feb. 27 that North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) had been selling military supplies in Malaysia in defiance of UN sanctions. According to a report that a UN expert panel recently submitted to the UN Security Council, the RGB had been using a company called Glocom to sell military communications equipment in Malaysia. In July 2016, cargo being shipped from China to Eritrea was confiscated for having violated UN sanctions. The confiscated cargo included 45 boxes of military-grade communications equipment marked with the Glocom logo. Since 2006, Glocom has participated at least three times in an armament fair held in Malaysia, and it had advertised in a military trade journal that it sold communications equipment for military and paramilitary organizations. Glocom at one time had a website, but the website was shut down last year, and its office on Little India street in Kuala Lumpur is currently closed as well.

By Cho Ki-weon, staff reporter

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