North Korea assassination: China foils plot against Kim Jong-un’s nephew
EXILED nephew of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was saved from an assassination plot thanks to increased security from Beijing authorities.
NORTH Korean agents have reportedly been arrested after Chinese officials foiled an alleged plot to kill the nephew of Kim Jong-un.
According to Fox News, two of the seven North Korean agents who were involved in the alleged plot to kill Kim Han-sol were arrested in Beijing, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported, citing North Korean sources.
The plot was only stopped because Chinese officials increased security during the country’s 19th National Congress of the Communist Party.
“Special operatives belonging to the North’s reconnaissance squad have penetrated to remove Kim Han-sol, but some of them were arrested last week by the Chinese Ministry of National Security and are currently under investigation at special facilities outside Beijing,” the source told JoongAng Ilbo.
Kim Han-sol, who is reportedly in his 20s, surfaced in March after he released a video confirming the death of his father, Kim Jong-nam, who was killed in February when two women smeared the banned VX nerve agent on his face at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur airport.
Speaking in English, Kim Jong-un’s nephew showed his passport as proof of his identity and said, “my father has been killed a few days ago.”
“I’m currently with my mother and sister. We hope …” before the video’s audio abruptly cuts off. He ends with, “we hope this gets better soon.”
Two women are on trial in Kim Jong-nam’s death. They have denied being part of the assassination plot and said they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank for a reality television show.
The involvement of missing North Korean agents have fuelled a South Korea spy agency’s claim that the attack was part of a careful plot set up by Kim Jong-un to kill his brother.
The half-brother and his family were living in exile since the early 2000s when Kim Jong-nam fell out of favour with his father, Kim Jong-il.
Kim Han-sol, like many Kim family members, attended school outside of North Korea, including United World College in Mostar, Bosnia.
He then moved to France to attend Paris Institute of Political Studies, the BBC reported. He is fluent in English.
Kim previously spoke out about his “dictator” uncle during a 2012 interview on a Finnish TV show.
“I’ve always dreamt that one day I would go back and make things better, and make things easier for the people back there. I also dream of unification,” Kim said about North Korea.
He added that he spent summers in North Korea when his family was living in exile to “meet with my relatives and keep in touch with my family.”
“I don’t really know how he became a dictator because first of all it was between him and my grandfather,” he said.
The North Korean despot had his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, executed in 2013 and accused him of being a “traitor” and committing a series of “hideous crimes.”
Reports claimed Kim Jong-un discovered a coup devised by his uncle and Chinese government to overthrow him and his regime.
This story originally appeared on Fox News and has been reprinted with permission.
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