Original subtitles

Do you think you'd be okay speaking on camera?

So we can show you as Siti's friend?

But I want to protect my identity. What if people say,

"That girl is the friend of a murderer"?

We were friends. We liked to hang out.

We liked talking, eating, shopping.

Hi.

Siti's really pretty and down to earth.

Somebody is having a baby...

She was always making jokes.

She's friendly and "happy go lucky."

Thank you. Buh-bye.

This is her last Facebook post.

The night before the murder,

Siti celebrated her birthday at Hard Rock Cafe.

Siti!

Here we go!

One, two, three!

♪ Happy birthday to you... ♪

She seemed really happy.

♪ Happy birthday... ♪

We couldn't believe that she murdered someone the next morning.

We are back with an apparent assassination,

brazenly carried out at an international airport.

Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un,

was murdered in Malaysia...

...the sudden and mysterious death of the half-brother

of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong-nam was at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport

when he was reportedly poisoned.

...after he was sprayed in the face with a chemical.

...by two female assassins...

A cold-blooded execution, straight from a spy movie,

local media reports say.

Two femme fatale killers

poisoning a mysterious political figure with a chemical weapon.

Malaysian police said the poison used

was the deadly VX nerve agent.

...one of the fastest-acting fatal poisons that exists, according to scientists.

The U.S. and South Korea believe the murder

was an assassination organized by North Korean agents.

But North Korea denies involvement in the crime.

Tonight, little is known about the two women

who have just been arrested in connection with the murder.

Were the women trained assassins

or innocent pawns of North Korean agents?

I started covering the Kim Jong-nam murder trial

from day one, when the first news broke.

A reporter's job is to tell the world the truth.

But in Malaysia, the freedom of press is limited.

Most of the big media agencies

are owned by the government.

So, it's hard to get the truth out.

But, I am lucky that my media organization is not a local one.

So we are quite open with what we can publish.

It's one of those big stories that is a dream for a reporter to report on.

So around 9 AM, Kim Jong-nam walked

through this entrance to the terminal.

He was just alone. No one was with him.

And right behind this column,

there was one woman waiting for him.

This is Siti Aisyah,

the woman in a light gray shirt.

And from that way,

Doan Thi Huong was coming towards him.

She was wearing a white T-shirt that says "LOL."

So he was supposed to print out his boarding pass,

but before he was able to do that,

Kim Jong-nam was jumped by Siti Aisyah and Doan.

And they allegedly smeared VX chemical onto his face.

The women ran away.

And then from the CCTV footage you can clearly see that Kim Jong-nam was

making this gesture to police officers

that these two women came up to smear his face with a chemical.

And from there the police officers escorted Kim Jong-nam towards the clinic.

You can see that he is starting to limp,

like he has already been affected by something.

He was given medical attention,

but within an hour, he was dead.

Meanwhile, the two women,

they both went down to level 2 to the toilet

to wash their hands.

It seems to suggest that

they knew that the chemical on their hands

is something dangerous.

They have a certain

cool, calculative

confidence in their walk.

Here is what I find interesting, because

she's walking and then she...

she looked into the CCTV camera.

As if challenging, you know?

Yeah, I just did that. So what?

Well, one thing is clear.

This is one of the most bizarre murder plots in decades.

It really is incredible, when you look at this woman,

who is acting in broad daylight.

Who are these women,

and do they work for the North Korean regime?

Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong

were charged with exposing the deadly nerve agent VX

to Kim Jong-nam's face.

Doan Thi Huong and Siti Aisyah were arrested

and now face the death penalty by hanging.

I didn't know at first.

ASRIA NUR HASAN:

I was at prayer.

Praying.

Reciting Qur'an at a funeral. A friend had died.

And then I found out.

I felt,

how could I, as a parent...

it felt like...

how could something like this happen?

What could have brought her to do such a thing?

I think she didn't know what she was doing.

If I asked her to do something,

she would do it.

That's the kind of person she is.

I've never actually seen this photo.

Wow.

My obsession with North Korea goes back a long way.

I started covering North Korea in 2004.

And I have not stopped yet.

So, when the assassination happened,

I came out of a yoga class, it was like nine o'clock at night,

and I looked at my phone

and saw it had blown up.

Kim Jong-nam has been assassinated.

Kim Jong-nam, at one point, was the favorite son of Kim Jong-il,

the former leader of North Korea.

He has been known as a potential rival for Kim Jong-un.

And it's raising suspicions that Kim Jong-un

may have once again marked one of his own relatives for death.

It was so surprising to me, you know, the footage,

to see Kim Jong-nam standing in this airport.

I mean, it's so amazing to think, you know,

I was trying to find Kim Jong-nam for several years before he was killed,

and just to see him walking around, no hat, no sunglasses.

It's really like, wow, I wish I had have been able to talk to him.

And there's this myth that the Kim family

was descended from Mount Paektu,

which is this mountain at the top of North Korea

on the border with China,

that is the mythical home of all Korean people.

And so the Kim regime has used this to say,

"We were divinely ordained to lead North Korea,"

and it's called the Paektu bloodline.

So Kim Il-sung passed down the leadership of North Korea

to his son, Kim Jong-il,

using this whole Paektu bloodline mythology

as the basis for his legitimacy.

So when it came time for Kim Jong-il

to anoint one of his sons,

it should have gone to Kim Jong-nam.

Are you Kim Jong-nam?

- Are you Kim Jong-nam? - No.

I cannot tell you.

It's my privacy, man.

Kim Jong-nam was the first-born son of Kim Jong-il.

And, in fact, Kim Jong-nam's mother

was a famous actress who Kim Jong-il spotted

and took her basically as his wife.

But Kim Jong-il really doted on Kim Jong-nam.

He was absolutely besotted with this boy

and really seemed to relish his time as a father at the beginning.

Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-un grew up entirely separate.

They had different mothers.

And there's a 10-year age difference.

Kim Jong-un's mother was another woman, she was a famous dancer,

and was very ambitious and very present.

She was advocating and agitating

for her son, for him to be the leader of North Korea,

and she had a very powerful influence in the system there.

So, at the beginning of the 2000s,

Kim Jong-nam was caught in this very embarrassing situation.

He had taken his young family to Tokyo

and was busted by the Japanese police.

He'd gone in under a fake Dominican Republic passport,

using a Chinese name, Pang Xiong, which means "fat bear."

And he said, you know, he just wanted to take his kid to Disneyland.

It was extremely embarrassing for the regime.

America is North Korea's number-one enemy

and Disneyland, you know, can you get more American than Disneyland?

But, in fact, there were rumors

that Kim Jong-un's mother actually tipped off the Japanese police

to the arrival of Kim Jong-nam in Japan

because she wanted to make sure

that he could not become the next leader of North Korea.

So, Kim Jong-nam struck a deal with his father

to be allowed to leave North Korea.

He moved to Macau, a Chinese territory,

where he was able to live a kind of normal life.

But he was ruled out of the succession line.

And throughout history, we've seen

brothers being sidelined

in this way.

From Cain and Abel to Romulus and Remus at the foundation of Rome.

Brothers are so threatening

because they can stake a claim to leadership

that nobody else can.

So, when I discovered that Kim Jong-nam had been killed,

I hopped on the first flight that I could get to Kuala Lumpur.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the foreign journalists,

welcome to Malaysia as well.

We have arrested two ladies,

and we have identified both of them.

The Malaysian police announced that they have arrested Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong.

They also announced there were eight North Korean suspects.

And out of those eight, four of them were at the airport

on the same day as Siti Aisyah and Doan,

And they left the country immediately after Kim Jong-nam's attack.

And then, they also announced the arrest of

one North Korean guy,

Ri Jong Choi. who was living in Malaysia

and he happens to be a chemist.

Ri Jong Choi, the suspect that was detained...

Can you clear up, because there are rumors that he was the driver or he was a chemistry expert...

He is subject of our investigation. How can we tell you?

We found out that Ri Jong Choi is

on the payroll of the North Korean embassy.

He lives in a house paid by the North Korean government in Kuala Lumpur.

I was just wondering...

the two female suspects,

did they know the substance was toxic?

Well, I think you have seen the video, right?

You have seen the -

the lady who was moving away with her hands like this,

towards the bathroom. Towards the washroom.

So she knew very well that

it is toxic and she needs to wash her hands.

Hello.

Yes, speaking.

Yes.

Because our theory is that this was a political assassination.

More than just the two girls being involved

in an ordinary murder case.

Well, we do not know exactly what type of evidence the police have in hand.

When we approach any case,

we will not accept what our client tells us.

We will investigate on our own and see whether our client is telling the truth.

After Siti Aisyah was arrested, we saw her the very next day.

And there in prison, there were other inmates who told her that,

"You are going to be the next 'BA.'"

"BA" is the -

banduan akhir.

That means on death row.

You are going to be the next one.

In Malaysia, if they're found guilty,

then it's a mandatory death sentence.

That is hanging by the neck until you are dead.

They will put a sandbag,

which would be sufficient to snap your neck immediately when...

You will die instantaneously.

Okay, all right, then. I will check that. Thank you.

We advised her to be very careful

not to talk about her story to anyone,

even Doan.

Because we don't know Doan's story.

The girls don't know each other,

and we don't know whether Doan is

working together with the North Koreans.

Not bad, eh? I can get the documents I want.

Very organized.

Okay, this is quite clear.

The victim is here.

And then I think the incident takes place...

Okay, this is on the day of the incident itself.

This is her action of putting up the hands like that.

And that is the crucial moment.

I first met Doan in prison.

There were two officers from the Vietnamese embassy and myself.

And when she was brought to us,

she was happy to see officers of the embassy,

who could speak her own language.

She was hopeful then at that point of time.

These are all the certificates Doan has earned since she was little.

She was always well-behaved, a good student.

Nothing troublesome.

We are farmers, my parents were farmers.

Doan's mother passed away three years ago,

before all this happened.

Doan was a good girl.

She was even terrified of butchering a chicken.

She wouldn't dare kill it. I always had to do it for her.

She went to Hanoi for college a few years ago.

I think the world out there seduced her.

When suddenly this happened,

everybody in the family was shocked.

I sent her a letter encouraging her that if she did do it,

she should confess it.

Whatever she did or however it happened,

only she knows.

We love her very much, but we don't know how to help her.

It has been seven days since the incident.

There is an allegation that the arrested female suspects murdered him.

The Malaysian police are desperate to shift the blame on us.

Last Friday night, they raided the condominium

of our citizen here in Kuala Lumpur

and forcibly arrested him.

The North Korean ambassador in Malaysia

held a press conference

talking about Ri Jong Chol,

the North Korean chemist who was arrested.

This is a grave human rights violation.

Saying that they have distrust in the Malaysian police investigation.

Malaysia reacted

by expelling the North Korean ambassador.

From there, North Korea issued a ban

on Malaysians leaving North Korea.

So all these people who are embassy staff and their families,

they are trapped in North Korea.

So they are basically hostages.

And then, in March,

Malaysia and North Korea actually had a negotiation.

North Korea demanded the release of Ri Jong Choi,

as well as the release of two suspects

who were hiding in the North Korean embassy.

They are a North Korean embassy official

and an employee of Air Koryo, the North Korean national airline.

They also demanded the body of Kim Jong-nam

to be sent back to North Korea.

After years in exile,

the murdered half-brother of North Korea's dictator

has finally gone home.

It's a clean sweep tonight for Kim Jong-un.

North Korea's dangerous young leader has gotten the body

of his murdered half-brother Kim Jong-nam.

And Malaysia has released three North Koreans

wanted for questioning in the murder.

Chaos at Beijing's airport Friday

as North Korean Ri Jong Chol made his way through the crowd.

Ri was released and then deported by Malaysian authorities

after being held as a suspect

in the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's estranged half-brother.

It was very difficult to bear but I said to myself

that I must get through this,

because I cannot let them do this to me as a North Korean citizen,

when they dare to trample on the honor of North Korea.

At the same time, Malaysia got back nine of its citizens,

who had been stuck in North Korea during this diplomatic standoff.

The Malaysians insist that the three North Koreans

were not traded for nine hostages.

We are finished with them, so that's why we allowed them to go.

Malaysia is one of those weird countries who actually has diplomatic relations with North Korea.

A good working relationship with North Korea.

It is very, very suspicious.

Why did you allow such important witnesses to go back to North Korea?

If you decide to save the nine Malaysian hostages in exchange for all those that they demanded,

I feel that they don't have the right to charge the two girls,

because you have compromised their right of defense.

The trial begins today

for the two women accused of murdering Kim Jong-nam,

the half-brother of the North Korean premier.

The women claim hey are innocent.

If found guilty, they face Malaysia's mandatory death penalty.

PROSECUTOR: Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong

PROSECUTOR: are each charged with murder

PROSECUTOR: along with four others at large

PROSECUTOR: against a man named Kim Chol.

Inside the courtroom, the prosecution is referring to Kim Jong-nam as "Kim Chol,"

which is the take name that appears on his passport.

And what was interesting and perhaps controversial,

is that the prosecution also charged four North Koreans who are still at large,

but was very reluctant to name the four North Koreans.

HISYAM: I think we ought to know before the trial starts who the four persons are.

HISYAM: The prosecution has got a legal duty to disclose,

HISYAM: at the same time a moral duty to disclose.

JUDGE: I find the omission to state the name

JUDGE: of the four persons at large

JUDGE: does not make the charge ambiguous.

JUDGE: Objection is hereby overruled.

It was not a good start for us.

No matter what the position that the prosecution is taking,

you cannot ignore the political angle of the assassination.

Kim Jong-il died in 2011.

And Kim Jong-un was officially unveiled as the successor

when he was 25 years old.

There was a great deal of skepticism when Kim Jong-un was announced.

He had no experience.

He was barely out of college at that stage.

And there was the question

if the old guard in North Korea, if they would tolerate

this young upstart coming in and ordering them around.

So there was a lot of doubt in Seoul, in Tokyo, in Washington,

that Kim Jong-un would be able

to keep this totalitarian regime together.

So, since Kim Jong-un came into power,

he has very kind of strategically acted

to instill loyalty at the top of the regime,

to make sure that the people who support him,

the elites who keep him in power,

have even more reason than ever to keep him there.

So, the millennials of Pyongyang can now do yoga classes

and drink cappuccinos

and they live a much better life

than under his father or his grandfather.

But the other part is fear.

He also needs to keep them terrified.

And the way that he has done this is by getting rid of anybody

who threatens him, who questions him,

who may in some way suggest

that he's not the legitimate leader of North Korea.

And as part of that, a lot of senior figures in the regime

have been purged.

Even his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, was executed.

And this is very much Kim Jong-un's MO for staying in power.

No one is safe.

And it was around that time, you know, Kim Jong-nam

was traveling a lot around southeast Asia,

and he made, you know, several surprising remarks,

where he seemed to question his brother's legitimacy to lead

and whether North Korea should have hereditary succession.

Hello, are you Mr. Kim Jong-nam?

Yes, I am. Hello.

As the first son, are you fine not being the successor?

Personally I'm against a third-generation succession of the dynasty.

And because of that,

because he was, you know, threatening Kim Jong-un's right to lead North Korea,

Kim Jong-nam was somebody who certainly would be considered a threat

by Kim Jong-un and whose life could be in danger.

Today the prosecution is calling Dr. Raja,

who is the government's chemical weapons expert.

DR. RAJA: My lord, VX is the deadliest nerve agent ever created by a human being.

DR. RAJA: A drop of VX is sufficient to cause fatality.

DR. RAJA: We identified VX on blazer of victim

DR. RAJA: and face and eye mucosa of victim.

DR. RAJA: We found degradation product of VX

DR. RAJA: on sleeveless shirt of Siti Aisyah.

DR. RAJA: We found VX on LOL t-shirt of Doan.

PROSECUTOR: What if just one drop of VX came into contact to human skin?

DR. RAJA: If you decontaminate within fifteen minutes,

DR. RAJA: you most likely will not see any effect or some delayed effect.

So the big takeaway from his testimony is that it answers

this lingering question of why the VX chemical, which we know is very toxic,

can kill Kim Jong-nam but it did not kill Siti Aisyah and Doan.

He explained that because the palm, number one, is thick,

the skin is thick.

Number two, it has a lot of fats.

So it was very difficult for the VX liquid

to penetrate through the skin into the bloodstream.

Unlike when VX is applied onto the eyes.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,

which represents 192 nations, issued a statement saying,

"Any use of chemical weapons is deeply disturbing."

While North Korea has not acknowledged it has chemical weapons,

South Korea estimates the regime has a stockpile

of up to 5,000 metric tons.

Now, if somebody brings a chemical weapon into your country,

to me that tantamounts to a declaration of war.

And VX,

who can have possession of VX?

No ordinary people.

GOOI: I refer to the things that were

GOOI: seized or obtained from the North Korean scientist by the name of

GOOI: Ri Jong Chol.

GOOI: Were you taken to his house?

DR. RAJA: No, my lord.

GOOI: You therefore have no knowledge whether

GOOI: his house was in fact a clandestine lab?

DR. RAJA: No, my lord.

The investigation is very shallow, I would say.

Ri Jong Choi is a chemist.

The police did not even investigate whether the VX actually came from him.

Both the girls, they never washed their clothes.

They never disposed of their clothes.

If they knew VX was so poisonous, if they actually knew it was VX,

would they take the chance of exposing themselves

to such a dangerous poison?

Okay.

When Siti was arrested,

we went to visit her in prison.

My first impression of, uh...

her whole demeanor, whole conduct.

She doesn't know anything.

That is when we found out Siti's story.

SITI: When I was arrested,

SITI: I was with my roommate in my room.

SITI: My room was not locked. It never was.

SITI: Then the police pushed the door open.

SITI: The police asked, "Where were you on the 13th?"

SITI: "At the airport," I said.

SITI: "With whom?"

SITI: "With Mr. Chang, my boss," I said.

SITI: "Can you call him?"

SITI: So I called Mr. Chang, but the number wasn't active.

SITI: The police asked, "Who are you? Are you a spy?"

SITI: "What did you do that caused that man in the airport to die?"

SITI: I was confused. I didn't understand what they meant.

SITI: "You are involved in the premeditated murder of the Korean president's brother."

SITI: I was shocked. "You're kidding."

SITI: "I was doing a video shoot."

SITI: "Is this part of the video prank?"

Siti,

she in fact thought that she was part of a prank show.

And we had to persuade her,

to tell her, "Look,

someone really died.

This is not a prank show.

And now you are being charged for murder."

As criminal lawyers, we have our reservations.

We have to be very objective.

Okay, not to believe 100%.

The issue is whether they know what they were doing.

And could they have been duped to believe that they are acting in a prank show?

HISYAM TEH POH TEIK:

When Doan grew up, she went to Hanoi to get her education.

Although she studied accountancy in a private university,

after that she couldn't get a job as an accountant.

She ended up working as a waitress in a pub.

And during this time, she was doing modeling.

And she even took part in Vietnam Idol.

Okay.

Okay.

Her aspiration is to be an actress.

She wants to be famous.

Even in her statement to the police,

she described her occupation as an actress.

Do you need an interpreter to translate from English to Vietnamese?

DOAN: No, because I can try speak and understand English.

DOAN: I work as waitress for three years.

I have a colleague named Thuy.

DOAN: In early December 2016,

DOAN: she called my cellphone.

DOAN: She said,

DOAN: "Do you want working for company about short movie or funny video?

DOAN: Come to shop Hay Bar.

DOAN: We are waiting here."

DOAN: I come alone and

DOAN: I saw Thuy and a guy sitting near the counter bar.

DOAN: I asked him, "What's your name?"

DOAN: And he answered me in Vietnamese language.

DOAN: "Call me Mr. Y."

DOAN: He explained about the funny video.

DOAN: He asked me how much I want for a month.

DOAN: I feel shy but I say, "I want US dollar 1000."

DOAN: He tell me his boss can pay for the funny video.

So now we are finding out that both women are claiming

that they have been going around Asia for months

doing prank shows for what they believe to be

a Japanese production company.

And their last prank

would be the murder assassination of Kim Jong-nam.

There's this culture of doing amateur prank videos.

I think it came from people watching shows like "Jackass." '

And with the access allowed by social media nowadays, people want to do that themselves.

So it's not really out of the ordinary for people to do prank videos here in Asia.

And Doan was doing this series of prank shows.

In 2016, Doan took part in two pranks

which were uploaded onto YouTube.

This is Doan now.

I want to emphasize that this prank

is not connected whatsoever to the North Koreans.

And this is one year before the incident with Kim Jong-nam.

I slap you, yeah?

Is it funny?

It's not uhh...

Yes, it is.

But whether it's funny does not matter.

This is part of the evidence

to show that in fact she was acting in funny video clips

a long time before she met the North Koreans.

Siti is here.

The one wearing sunglasses.

I really want her to come home.

Siti went to school until 6th grade.

And then, in time, she needed to find work.

SITI: When I was young,

SITI: I saw my family was poor.

SITI: I wanted to help my family.

SITI: So I went to Jakarta.

SITI: I found work at a clothing factory.

SITI: And that is when I got married to the owner.

SITI: And then, I had my son when I was 17.

SITI: I liked being a mother,

SITI: but I was young and had to work a lot.

SITI: At the clothing factory,

SITI: people saw me as being that little girl from the village.

SITI: I would work from 7:30 or 8 AM until midnight.

SITI: I didn't have any other work experience so I had no other choice.

SITI: Then in 2012,

SITI: my husband and I got a divorce.

SITI: And my son went to live with my ex-husband's father.

SITI: Of course I was sad.

SITI: But my life was just to work and find money to eat.

I think for Siti...

life was difficult. She had to survive.

And so in the hope of a better life,

for her and her family,

she came to Kuala Lumpur to look for a better job.

SITI: Kuala Lumpur, in my opinion,

SITI: is progressive compared to Jakarta.

SITI: In Kuala Lumpur I could go out around town.

SITI: I saw lots of fashionable people at the mall.

SITI: From there I learned,

SITI: oh, I can change and be pretty.

SITI: In the beginning, I was happy.

For a young migrant,

women especially,

coming to Malaysia,

it can be a very dangerous world.

Most often they come here

believing in a promise of a secure job,

but when they arrive,

they find themselves in a very different environment,

the underbelly of Kuala Lumpur.

And some of them being forced into prostitution,

sexual slavery.

And they usually don't have any say about it.

When I first met Siti,

she was a village girl,

still a teenager.

She had a job working at a spa.

I knew that she did not like her job as a sex worker.

But she had no other choice.

This was the only kind of work to earn good money.

According to Siti, there was this person

John, this taxi driver,

who introduced her to the North Koreans.

There were, what-- two, three attempts for us to meet John.

But the police, they could not produce him.

They said he was uncontactable.

I will start from the beginning, okay?

One night, this guy approached me in front of the mall entrance.

He said he wanted to go to Kuala Lumpur City Centre.

He said his name was James,

and he was from Japan.

He was looking for girls to act in a prank video.

He told me, "If you find any girls, then give me a call."

Around 3 o'clock in the morning, the club closes.

The girls there will come outside and look for customers.

That night, I saw Siti there by herself.

SITI: John asked, "Do you want to do a video shoot?

SITI: A guy from Japan

SITI: is looking for an actress for a video shoot."

I had asked many girls there if they'd be interested,

but Siti was the only person who agreed.

The entire text messages, we went through.

Hundreds of pages.

Thousands.

Thousands of pages.

Nothing to indicate that

she had anything sinister or that she was involved in the assassination.

SITI: After getting to Pavilion,

SITI: John introduced me to the boss from Japan, James.

SITI: James put baby lotion on my hands.

SITI: I was instructed to hold someone's hand,

SITI: look at their face, then say sorry.

SITI: I didn't think the prank videos were that funny.

SITI: But he convinced me that every Japanese prank show

SITI: has its own style.

SITI: Then he paid me 400 ringgits (96 USD),

SITI: I thought, "That's easy money for doing such a simple thing."

SITI: And I could send it home to my parents.

1-6-8, there.

This is a photo of James.

This is John, the taxi driver who introduced her to James.

And this is Siti, at the very first meeting at Pavilion.

This photo--

Someone who knew John saw him there

and took a photograph and posted it in a group chat.

It is coincidental. Thank God for this photo.

The photograph essentially confirms Siti'’s story.

Today the prosecution is putting the investigating officer to the witness stand,

Wan Azirul.

He is the prosecution's star witness in this case.

PROSECUTOR: You mentioned earlier about the role of the four North Koreans. Can you tell us their role?

WAN AZIRUL: The four suspects were the people who provided both Siti and Doan with ongoing training exercises

WAN AZIRUL: to ensure that their actions on the day of the incident would be successful.

HISYAM: Objection, my lord.

The investigating officer used the word "training."

- Yes. That's right. - We objected.

This is pure interpretation by the investigating officer.

His version is Doan and Siti Aisyah were taking part in training.

And we have in fact strong evidence

to show that she is in fact

being tricked, being duped to do what she did.

DOAN: Mr. Y said meet at big theater Hanoi.

DOAN: He told me how to do action in the video.

DOAN: He said go talk and give surprise kiss

DOAN: on the cheek to anybody he choose.

DOAN: After that, a Korean man - really old - came to us and

DOAN: we went to coffee shop nearby and sitting.

DOAN: Mr. Y said, "This is my boss."

DOAN: I asked the bass his name.

DOAN: Mr. Y told me, "Hanamori means uncle."

DOAN: "So, just sail him Hanamori."

Siti, there was a prank on the 9th of January.

At Mandarin Oriental.

And she made a video of James.

James could not speak proper English.

Listen, listen.

Turn off the camera.

Turn off!

And they were communicating

using Google Translate.

So to ensure that the whole thing will go well,

they introduce Mr. Chang.

SITI: Mr. Chang was very good at speaking Indonesian.

SITI: He was different from James.

SITI: Chang was a little... flirtatious.

The prank jobs that they were doing at that time,

we call them "mistaken identity."

They come from behind, close somebody's eyes.

Like, "Guess who I am?" sort of thing.

She was paid a few hundred US dollars.

And I think that was a fairly good remuneration for her.

Why you filming me?

SITI: They told me,

SITI: "You'll go to Singapore, to America... everywhere.

SITI: You'll become famous as the video prank actress."

Doan did a prank at the Vietnamese airport.

And, in fact, we have the DVD.

That is Doan here in white.

DOAN: Mr. Y gave my hand Johnson baby cream.

DOAN: He said I make surprise same like before.

Okay, watch this gentleman closely.

And on the other side,

there you see?

Doan running,

coming behind the gentleman.

Yep. She did the prank.

And you see a gentleman here

videoing the prank.

There you are: Mr. Y.

A few days later, Doan took a flight.

She came to Kuala Lumpur together with Mr. Y,

and one more prank at the KLIA airport.

Siti had three days of pranks,

all at the arrival of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

And then she posted a video of KLIA.

You know, if I was going to assassinate someone,

surely I would not tell them where I got trained.

As young women, they had documented so much of this on social media.

I mean, one of the great things about technology here

is that it did create this trail

which showed the relationships between the women

and their North Korean handlers

that could enable them to put up a defense.

PROSECUTOR: Based on your investigation, do you agree that this was a prank?

WAN AZIRUL: To me, the "prank" that was acted out by both of them

WAN AZIRUL: is something that doesn't make any sense and is illogical.

"The specific act was more of an attack that was specifically targeted

and perpetrated by both defendants on the day of the incident."

As the investigating officer,

you are supposed to investigate based on the evidence,

you are not supposed to come out with judgement.

It shows he already made up his mind early on that these girls are guilty,

and he and the prosecution are basically

reading from the same book.

Look at the evidence completely and entirely.

These girls have got no motive whatsoever.

But look at the North Koreans.

North Korea has got an interest.

Kim Jong-nam had been living in Macau for more than a decade.

And there are a number of rumors

that this was not the first attempt on his life,

that Kim Jong-un had tried repeatedly to assassinate Kim Jong-nam.

In fact, the South Korean intelligence reported

that Kim Jong-nam had actually written a letter to his brother, saying, you know,

"Please stop trying to kill me,"

like, "I am not a threat to you."

You know, "I do not want to be the leader.

"Please let me and my family...

please let us live our lives."

So he was extremely careful and conscious that he was always in danger.

But because he was living in China,

for North Korea to assassinate Kim Jong-nam,

it's very difficult because, you know, North Korea is reliant on China.

They are North Korea's number-one benefactor, patron state.

And from China's point of view,

they had given Kim Jong-nam kind of exile protection,

and in some ways were maybe keeping him in reserve,

that if they wanted to replace Kim Jong-un,

they could install Kim Jong-nam as the leader of North Korea.

So there's no way that North Korea could ever

conduct such an audacious assassination,

or any assassination, on Chinese soil.

So they had to make sure they caught Kim Jong-nam

when he was outside of China.

On February 8th, 2017,

just like days before he was -

before he was killed,

Kim Jong-nam flew to Langkawi,

which is a resort island in the north part of Malaysia.

He checked in at the Westin Hotel.

So, here we have Kim Jong-nam

in the elevator at the Westin Hotel in Langkawi,

with this man, who was later reported to be a CIA agent.

It's never been confirmed that this man was, in fact,

working for the CIA.

But during the course of my reporting, I discovered that Kim Jong-nam

had become a CIA informant after his brother took power.

So he met with this CIA agent,

and they spent two hours together.

And he flew back to Kuala Lumpur,

where he was killed.

After the murder,

Malaysian police went through Kim Jong-nam's laptop.

And they were able to identity that

data was removed from the laptop into a USB drive

on the day where Kim Jong-nam met with the American agent.

In his bag, they found 138,000 US dollars,

which seems to suggest that the money was

payment for the data that was transferred.

The CIA likes to say that North Korea is the blackest of all the black holes.

They have so little information about what's happening inside North Korea.

And Kim Jong-nam, the one thing that he had

that very few other people had

was information about the inner workings of this regime.

And if North Korea had discovered that Kim Jong-nam

was providing information to the American intelligence service,

this alone would be reason for the North Koreans

to try to eliminate him.

DOAN: On February 4th, 2017,

DOAN: me and Mr. Y together go to Kuala Lumpur again.

This video clip shows Doan checking into the hotel.

She had this teddy bear with her.

Huge one.

About the same size as her.

And Mr. Y instructed her

to practice the prank on the teddy bear.

When we started this case,

some of the CCTV footage

was leaked to a Japanese TV station.

And that went viral.

Whereas, the defense counsel,

we have put in lots of letters to the police

asking for the CCTV footage,

with no reply whatsoever.

Now, we finally received the CCTV footage

some six months after the incident.

This is in KLIA2 airport departure hall.

Mr. O Jong-gil in the white cap

and Hanamori, the guy in the purple shirt.

Hanamori is the mastermind of the operation, but

O Jong-gil, he is also closely involved.

We like to call him the Godfather of the operation.

DOAN: Mr. Y said video on the 13th is very important.

DOAN: So I wear long sleeve white shirt with LOL print

DOAN: and I make hairstyle like wave and makeup beautifully.

DOAN: Mr. Y said company rent new actor and actress

DOAN: to make more effective video and put on YouTube.

Siti Aisyah just arrived and

she is taking a seat across from Mr. Chang.

On the table we can actually see a smartphone mounted on a selfie stick.

SITI: He said, "Today there will be hidden cameras,

SITI: so not just me."

So here you can see Siti

high five Mr. Chang.

Either she is oblivious about what she's about to do,

or she is

so well trained

that the act of killing someone

is just another day for her.

DOAN: Mr. Y said the new actor is a fat man and no hair.

This is Kim Jong-nam.

He is looking at the board to check out his flight to Macau.

If you look very closely,

this over here is Siti.

She is standing next to this column.

She is not alone over there.

She is actually with Mr. Chang, who is hiding behind this column.

And over here,

waiting at the table is Hanamori,

the mastermind.

You can see that when Kim Jong-nam enters,

Hanamori walked toward Mr. Chang and Siti Aisyah,

indicating that Kim Jong-nam is coming.

And as Kim Jong-nam is walking towards the kiosk,

you can see that Siti moves and hid behind this column.

SITI: Suddenly, Mr. Chang said,

SITI: "That's the one, in the gray jacket."

SITI: He gave me the baby oil.

And now we can see Mr. Chang.

He walks past Kim Jong-nam

to watch the attack happen.

DOAN: Mr. Y gave me oil on my hand.

DOAN: He told me, "Don't look."

DOAN: He said, "Just look at the actor and actress."

I saw the new actress

put hands on his face from the back.

DOAN: I ran and do the same surprise.

DOAN: I put my hand on his eyes.

DOAN: I say sorry to him.

DOAN: I running and go.

Looking from this angle you can see Kim Jong-nam.

He stumbled back.

It's very possible for him to actually start to feel the effect of the VX chemical right away.

SITI: He reacted like he was scared. It scared me too.

SITI: So I ran away.

WAN AZIRUL: In this image we see a woman.

WAN AZIRUL: She walks quickly and is seen

WAN AZIRUL: trying to avoid touching her bag.

WAN AZIRUL: She holds her hands as though she doesn't want to touch the two moving rails,

WAN AZIRUL: shaking her hands like it's burning.

This video is important because you can see Siti

rubbing the palm of her hand.

And Wan Azirul's testimony was that Siti

was trying to avoid contact.

If she had known it was VX, you know, the most lethal poison,

she would surely not have rubbed the palm of her hands.

WAN AZIRUL: The CCTV recording clearly shows Doan

WAN AZIRUL: and her hands seemed very uncomfortable.

DOAN: I felt my hand oily and smelly

DOAN: and I don't want it to dirty my LOL white T-shirt.

As Kim Jong-nam was dying,

these North Koreans,

they were subsequently seen in the CCTV

going towards the toilet and change their clothes.

Then they were immediately met by the secretary of the North Korean embassy

and the staff in the Air Koryo,

who facilitated their easy

passage through the immigration.

If you look here at this moment,

you can see them laughing.

This is like within two hours

after they killed Kim Jong-nam.

And then they flew immediately to Jakarta,

the first flight they could take to connect them to Dubai

and to Vladivostok and back to Pyongyang, North Korea.

The four North Koreans have escaped.

Ri Jong Choi,

the staff of the North Korean Embassy,

and the staff in the Air Koryo,

all were allowed to go back to North Korea.

And James,

nobody knows where is James today.

All the North Koreans were untouched.

But somebody has got to be charged,

because somebody is dead.

So the two girls,

they become scapegoats of the prosecution.

WAN SHAHARUDDIN WAN LADIN:

We have presented our case,

so now it is for them to explain their conduct.

The two lawyers mentioned that this whole plot is a political conspiracy,

that North Korea wants to murder... it's not these two women.

I don't care.

There is no evidence of political plot.

The four North Koreans who ran away

didn't apply the VX to the victim.

It's not important for us to prove.

For me, sitting through the prosecution's stage of the trial,

it is pretty clear that

the prosecution, and by extension, the government,

want to convict these two women.

In the international stage it would look very bad for Malaysia to have

somebody of a high profile as

Kim Jong-nam to be murdered in broad daylight

at its biggest international airport.

It's a big shame for the country.

So in a typical mentality of saving face,

someone has to take the blame, to take the fall for it.

Just from a judicial point of view, yes, these women were caught on camera

carrying out this act.

They were very clearly the ones who had assassinated, technically,

Kim Jong-nam.

So Malaysia did need to act, did need to hold somebody to account,

and the fact is that the masterminds of it were back in North Korea.

So now the assassination of Kim Jong-nam

has been really fundamental to phase one

of Kim Jong-un's leadership

and to the way that he has been able to stay in power.

And once he had taken out all his rivals,

he had proven his strength domestically...

He was ready for phase two.

North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.

They will be met with fire and fury

like the world has never seen.

He wanted to get the world's attention.

I think now that he has proven he had a credible nuclear weapons program,

he is now starting this process

of trying to look like a respectable international statesman

and seems very strong and very confident

and very much in control of this regime.

Hello.

Okay, good. Who is this, please?

Ah, okay, all right, all right, fine.

Now that the prosecution has closed its case,

how do you save your client from execution at this point?

Look at the conduct.

Two days after the incident,

Doan went back to the airport

again to the scene of crime.

Now the question is:

assuming Doan is the assassin, assuming she is the killer,

would she go back to the airport two days later

and be identified? It doesn't makes sense, does it?

This is Doan.

She's coming back to the arrival hall.

You can see, she never cut her hair.

She was wearing the same shoes.

She don't know

that someone called Kim Jong-nam has died,

and police are looking for her.

DOAN: Mr. Y said today make another video at KLIA.

DOAN: So I go there at 8 AM

DOAN: and call and text him many times.

DOAN: But he switch off his phone.

Then, no choice, she wanted to go back to the hotel.

She called for a taxi.

The guards came.

And she was arrested by the authorities.

The prosecution's case was closed on the 5th of April.

And meanwhile, the girls are incarcerated.

They have already been in the jail for one and a half years.

And that damage is irreparable.

In our criminal system here,

once the prosecution presents its case,

the judge will have to make a decision whether

a case has been proven against both of the girls.

The judge could either acquit the girls

or call for their defense.

JUDGE: My reading of my finding will take quite some time.

JUDGE: So please bear with me.

JUDGE: There is bound to be unhappiness.

It took two and a half hours

for the judgement to be delivered.

It was an eighty-two page judgement.

JUDGE: The CCTV footage shows both women holding their hands away from themselves.

JUDGE: To me, the precise timing and the use of the VX as a chemical weapon

JUDGE: all goes to support that they knew that the liquid placed on their hands were toxic substances.

I think that was the moment where I...

on the margins of my notes I wrote that

they are fucked.

And I think these girls are going to hang.

JUDGE: The sole purpose of prank is fun.

JUDGE: It is evident that none of the features of "prank"

JUDGE: can be seen or found to exist in the CCTV footage.

JUDGE: I find that the contention that they were merely duped

JUDGE: into carrying out the act could not possibly hold water.

JUDGE: I am of the firm view that the accused persons

JUDGE: were the perpetrators leading to the death of Kim Chol,

JUDGE: and I must therefore call upon them

JUDGE: to enter their defense on their respective charges.

How is your client feeling?

She is obviously disappointed with the ruling made by his Lordship.

Will you still try your defense of the prank, given that--

Oh, yes. That has been our

defense consistently from day one until now.

And we will pursue it until the end of the defense's case.

But the judge said it's not a prank because nobody laughed?

That is his finding at this point of time.

He has not heard Doan.

At this point of time,

Siti and Doan have been in jail almost two years.

I think the girls, um, really have no one apart from each other.

Because they are kept separately from all other inmates.

Even then they are separated from one another.

SITI: With Doan, when we first entered the prison,

SITI: she was asked by the Malaysian police

SITI: which part of Vietnam she was from,

SITI: and she said, "Hanoi."

SITI: I didn't know her name,

SITI: so I called her "Noi" from Hanoi.

DOAN: We have separate cells so we cannot see each other.

DOAN: We must talk louder to hear.

SITI: Sometimes when I was about to eat, I would say,

SITI: "Hanoi, let's eat."

SITI: And she would say the same thing,

SITI: "Okay, let's eat, Aisyah."

SITI: After about a year in prison,

SITI: I started to joke around more with Noi,

SITI: and chit-chat.

SITI: That was when we started to be close friends.

DOAN: Siti is very funny.

DOAN: Also very...

DOAN: good heart.

DOAN: Only...

DOAN: me understand her and

DOAN: her understand me.

DOAN: We become

DOAN: like sisters, become best friends.

DOAN: When we together,

DOAN: I can feel her heart.

DOAN: That's why she can believe me and I can believe her.

In preparation for the defense of Doan,

we spent about total fourteen hours with her.

To go through her statement, discuss the evidence with her.

PRAYER ROOM

Doan is a bit anxious, obviously.

A bit tense,

because today she is taking the stand for the first time in her entire life.

She is aware that her case will be watched by people throughout the world.

There will definitely be pressure on her.

But I think she...

she's prepared.

On Saturday, before the trial started,

my friend texted Gooi.

And Gooi sent this

rather vague

text back to her

saying, "Bring all your team down on Monday.

There is going to be big news."

Azura.

Azura.

So I met with Selvi,

throwing some guesses at her.

You guys found one of the North Koreans?

You guys are going to bring James here?

And she was like,

"I don't know. You just wait. You just wait."

The lead prosecutor Mohammad Iskandar Ahmad

got up, looked at the judge, and he said,

PROSECUTOR: There's something that I would like to address today, my Lord.

PROSECUTOR: I am requesting...

PROSECUTOR: Your honor, I...

PROSECUTOR: I request to withdraw

PROSECUTOR: the charge against Siti Aisyah.

I literally was like,

"What?!"

The judge clearly looked surprised

that this happened,

but then he said,

JUDGE: The court has determined that Siti Aisyah,

JUDGE: the first defendant, is hereby released.

JUDGE: All right?

JUDGE: You can go.

I think Siti was trying to process what was going on.

So she got up and grabbed Doan and hugged her.

And then she left the courtroom.

How are you feeling?

I feel...

I feel like I'm...

Did they tell you before?

- No, I didn't know. - You just found out now?

Uh-huh.

I feel...

pretty surprised.

Who was that? Aisyah?!

Oh my God!

What the hell just happened?

Yeah, she was released without...

Today, the

prosecution informed the court that

they declined to further prosecute the case against Siti Aisyah.

So Siti Aisyah has been discharged from the court today.

The decision is...

The decision is the decision of the attorney general, the public prosecutor to

decline to further prosecute. No reasons were given.

What will happen next?

Next is that she is a free person and

she will be going back to Jakarta.

What's going to happen to Doan?

Doan's case?

I believe since they did not indicate anything, the case must continue.

HISYAM: My lord, the accused person will give evidence under oath.

HISYAM: We have prepared a written statement.

DOAN: I, Doan Thi Huong, solemnly swear

DOAN: and promise the court...

Doan was pretty traumatized with the whole experience.

She just saw

the girl who was with her the whole time

being let go.

And she just broke down and cried.

HISYAM: We'd like to make a representation, my lord.

Her lawyers asked the Judge for court to be adjourned.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the charge against Siti Aisyah was withdrawn,

whereas, as far as Doan is concerned,

the charge still remains the same.

Doan is obviously traumatized

that there's no fairness shown to her.

She's entitled to the same kind of considerations

that the public prosecutor decides to withdraw the charge against Siti Aisyah.

Bearing in mind the court has found as a fact

there's a case against both of them to answer.

To me, it's a mixed feeling.

We are happy for Siti Aisyah and yet we are

sad for Doan.

The girls drew strength from one another.

To me it would be very hard for Doan

to go through the trial

alone.

- Come, come. - Azura, come.

One for my team.

In my heart I know Doan's innocent as well.

I've been a criminal lawyer for the last 40 years.

Until today, I...

if you ask me what justice is, I still...

I find it very difficult to answer that question.

At first, it does appear to be coming out of nowhere because nobody was expecting it.

But later on we found out that

Siti's discharge is

based on the fact that the Indonesian government has been

putting constant pressure against the Malaysian government.

There have been backchannel discussions at a very high level

for the release of Siti Aisyah.

President Joko Widodo discussed the issue of Siti Aisyah

with the Malaysian Prime Minister at Bogor Palace in June 2018.

It makes sense what Indonesia is doing to save their citizen Siti Aisyah.

But the same cannot be said for the Vietnamese government,

who is not doing as much to defend Doan.

Vietnam and North Korea continue to have very close relations.

They're both communist countries.

And there's a lot of North Korean activity inside Vietnam.

So I think Vietnam's incentive to speak out

and to risk angering North Korea for the sake of this one woman,

I think, was very different from the situation that Indonesia faced,

whereas Indonesia doesn't have those same strong relations with North Korea.

If previously the thought of

both of them going

to be hanged

for this murder

felt really unfair,

I feel it would be even worse

if Doan were going to be hanged,

- Bye! - Bye!

while Siti Aisyah goes back home.

We're just so happy.

Just so glad.

Praise be to Allah.

Certainly, I am so happy to be home,

and be with my family and friends.

But I am definitely still sad.

It's as if

those North Koreans saw me

as if my life has no value whatsoever.

Like I am a nobody, a nothing.

Doan and I grew very close

over the course of the trial.

I always gave my support to her,

and she always gave her support to me.

When I cried...

when I cried,

she would always console me.

And when she cried,

I would do the same for her.

I think of her as my own sister.

I pray she will not get the death penalty.

Doan has been very depressed. Confused.

We saw her at the prison about two or three times.

And two or three times she told me that she would not testify.

You see, the court has made a ruling.

The judge has called for the defense.

And the law says, if, after such ruling,

Doan decides not to testify,

she will be convicted and sentenced to death:

There's no other option whatsoever.

So, upon arriving here this morning,

one thing I noticed is

the presence of Vietnamese officials from the embassy,

including the Vietnamese Ambassador to Malaysia.

Which, in a way, is

a ray of hope, I suppose for Doan.

But, at the same time,

it is still

pretty much not clear what is going to happen to her.

The charges against her still stand

and her defense lawyers have tried to get the Attorney General to change his mind.

So, today we will find out whether

that would happen or not.

QUIET PLEASE. COURT IS IN SESSION.

How do you feel, Doan?

Thank you so much.

- You're happy? - I'm happy.

Doan!

We feel very lucky and happy.

The family is very, very lucky today and very happy.

Thank you very much.

So instead of facing a murder charge,

she is being offered to

plead guilty to a charge of causing harm,

which is a much lesser offense than murder.

Would you say it is finally a happy ending for everyone?

We are happy this morning that it's come to a happy ending,

that Doan can look forward - there's a date for her that she can go back home.

And that day is very near.

One minute, one minute. Take their photo.

One, two...

- Okay. Nice. Very good. - Thank you.

Take off the specs.

What did you think about the most while you were in custody?

I thought about my parents,

I thought about my country and how much I wanted to come home.

What do you want to do now that you're back?

I don't know what to do yet,

but I think I'd like to perform.

Like an actress. That's what I want.

Thank you.

Thank you, see you later.

Thank you, I'm very happy now. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Yes.

It is in a way a bittersweet ending.

Seeing now that the two women are home.

Both families have their daughters back safely.

But I don't think their lives will ever be the same.

I only learned about Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-un

after coming back to Indonesia.

I searched and read about my case from the start,

how everything happened,

and saw photos of Kim Jong-nam.

"Oh, this is Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un."

It's only now...

only now that I really understand.

I never imagined

that I could be involved in his murder.

I feel really sorry for him.

Really sorry.

- Hello, Noi? - Oh yeah, yes?

What are you doing?

Okay. I want to -

I want to see you. I miss you.

I miss you too.

When I came back, a lot of difficult,

a lot of media and

talking. People talking.

People don't know me and Siti.

People...

just watching on the television.

People don't know

how difficult time we have had.

Before, I think

the world is pink color.

The pink world is very beautiful and colorful. Right?

And all people is good people.

But now I can see more clear.

I can see the real world is not pink.

I will be careful in my life

to trust people.

It's the end of

the journey for these two women.

But is what happened over the last two years,

can we say this is justice?

And is there ever going to be justice for

the late Kim Jong-nam?

For all the international condemnation and shock

that followed this assassination,

you know, North Korea has got away relatively scot-free from this.

In many ways, this is the perfect crime.

The fact that Kim Jong-un was prepared to purge and execute his brother,

in this most spectacular fashion,

sent a message to the world that his brutality knows no limits,

that nobody is safe.

The North Koreans never suffered any punishment for this.

North Korea still has an embassy in Malaysia.

You know, the relations between them have not really suffered

as a result of this.

And Kim Jong-un,

he has been able to come to the outside world.

And he gets his red carpet welcome on the dais with the flags.

He gets the photo opportunity to show himself

as an international statesman.

And now, all of a sudden, he gets to present himself

as a peer of the most powerful man in the world.

I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong-un.

I can't show you the letter, obviously, but it was a very personal,

very warm, very nice letter.

I saw the information about the CIA with respect to his half-brother.

And I would tell him that would not happen under my... under my auspices.

So this is the way that Kim Jong-un has defied all the skepticism

and shown that he is, you know, surprisingly adept

at being a totalitarian leader.

And I think these two women were very unwitting pawns

in this bigger chess game.

I'm sorry about everything.

I hope

people in the world will think

me and Siti like

your friends, like

your daughters, like

your sisters.

When I was in Kajang Prison,

I'd be lying down falling asleep,

and I would stare out the window.

It was way high up on the wall.

I would pray as I gazed at the sky,

"Oh Allah, will I ever see the sky again,

in all its vastness?"