Story highlights
Two women from humble backgrounds stand accused murdering Kim Jong Nam
Father of one suspect Siti Aisyah tells CNN she was taken advantage of
Asria Nur Hasan was preparing goods to sell at the local market when the phone rang unexpectedly this past March.
It was his daughter. She was calling from a Malaysian jail cell.
“I was surprised. I couldn’t help but to cry,” Hasan, 56, said from his home of Rancasumur, near Serang, in Indonesia.
His daughter, Siti Aisyah and a Vietnamese woman, Doan Thi Huong, stand accused of carrying out one of the most audacious assassination plots of the 21st Century: the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The pair’s trial began on Monday, in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. If found guilty, both could face the death penalty.
“She will be proven innocent,” Hasan said. “My daughter would not have done such a thing, if she was not used by someone.”
The plot to murder North Korea’s exiled son
Killed with VX
Kim Jong Nam was killed on February 13 while trying to catch a flight from Kuala Lumpur to his adopted home of Macau, the Chinese-controlled territory and gambling mecca.
Malaysian authorities allege that Aisyah and Huong were trained by North Korean agents to surreptitiously swab Kim’s face with VX nerve agent, a powerful chemical weapon that kills by sending the nervous system into overdrive. North Korea vehemently denies this.
Representatives for Huong and Aisyah claimed the two women were duped into thinking that they were participating in a prank TV show.