Kim Jong Nam Murder Suspects, Trial Judge, Lawyers Visit Crime Scene

The suspects in the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, were taken back to the scene of crime Tuesday, reports said. Indonesian citizen Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, were taken to the scene as part of a three-hour inspection tour which required them moving from the courtroom to Kuala Lumpur's budget international terminal where Jong Nam was allegedly smeared with VX nerve agent Feb. 13.

The visit happened amid high security with 200 police officers accompanying trial judge Azmi Ariffin. There were prosecutors, defence lawyers and representatives of the suspects' home countries along with scores of journalists present in the scene. The police officers were clad in black uniforms with many carrying rifles and wearing masks. The officers also formed a security ring around the group when they were inspecting the locations in the busy airport. The trial will return to the courtroom Wednesday, officials said, according to reports.

The motive of the visit was to retrace the events that unfolded there during and after Jong Nam's death, Reuters reported.

The site visit covered several locations in the airport terminal where Aisyah and Thi Huong were seen on CCTV videos during and after the murder. These videos had been played in court earlier during the trial.

Those locations included a restaurant where the two suspects were seen meeting an unidentified man and the toilets where they had gone to wash off their hands after the attack, according to police witnesses. The video also showed the clinic where the victim sought medical help and the taxi stands where both the women were seen after attacking Jong Nam, reports said.

Aisyah's lawyer Gooi Soon Seng said the site visit was for everybody to see the actual locations and which cameras recorded the scenes of the attack on Jong Nam.

"I believe the visit to the crime scene will help strengthen the prosecution's case because it will allow the judge to follow the women's trail and understand why they took that path," prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told the Associated Press (AP) before the tour began.

Midway through the three-hour visit, Huong started feeling unwell while Aisyah became emotional and broke down in tears, after which both of them were provided with wheelchairs. Both the women were apparently exhausted from the weight of the bulletproof vests which they had been wearing for the visit, the defence lawyers said, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, after Jong Nam's death, South Korea's spy agency blamed Kim for the murder of his half-brother. The agency said the North Korean had carefully devised the plan of killing Jong Nam, even though the two had reportedly never met. Although Jong Nam was not known to be actively seeking influence over Kim, he had spoken out publicly on several occasions against his family's dynastic rule. It was considered that because Jong Nam was the eldest son of the late leader Kim Jong Il, he could have threatened Kim's leadership, AP reported.