Kim Jong-nam 'met American man 4 days before his assassination'

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, met a US national on a Malaysian island just four days before he was assassinated, a police witness revealed on Monday (29 January).

Kim met the mystery Korean-American man at a hotel on the Malaysian island of Langkawi on 9 February, four days before he was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, chief police officer Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz told the court.

"Until now, the identity of the man is not known," Wan Azirul said. He did not provide any further details about the meeting, including the name of the hotel where it reportedly took place.

Kim arrived in Malaysia on 6 February, according to Wan Azirul.

Two alleged female assassins, Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, have been accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim's face in the crowded airport terminal. Prosecutors have said that four other North Korean agents were also involved in the assassination.

The female suspects argue that they thought they were taking part in a television prank. If convicted, they face the death penalty.

Wan Azirul made the comments while he was being questioned by Siti Aisyah's lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, about a report in Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun that Kim had met a US intelligence agent on Langkawi.

Kim is believed to have passed a large amount of information to the agent on a USB drive, a forensics report into his laptop revealed.

Wan Azirul said that the laptop had been sent to a forensics laboratory in Kuala Lumpur for further investigation. He could not confirm that the alleged meeting between the two men was linked to the airport hit.

Gooi accused the witness of providing evasive answers.

"Come on, you have a total lapse in memory?" he told Wan Azirul. "You say you investigated but you've forgotten everything? Which hotel? What was this investigation for, if it wasn't related to this case?"