North Korea's leader's half-brother was killed with VX at Kuala Lumpur airport, and Malaysia traded his body for nine of its citizens held in Pyongyang

Kim Jong-nam was the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He lived in exile in Macau with his wife and children. On 13 February 2017 he was attacked at the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur's airport and died on the way to hospital. Malaysian officials said the VX nerve agent killed him. Police sought seven North Korean suspects; four had already left. South Korean lawmakers said their intelligence service linked four of them to North Korea's Ministry of State Security. North Korea demanded the body. Malaysia refused to release it without DNA from next of kin, and in mid-March confirmed his identity from a sample taken from one of his children. His family in Macau had disappeared after the killing. Malaysia expelled North Korea's ambassador, and each country barred the other's citizens from leaving. On 30 March 2017 the two governments agreed an exchange. The coroner released the body after receiving a letter "from his family" asking that it go to North Korea; Malaysia did not say which family. On 31 March the body flew to Beijing and then Pyongyang, with two suspects who had sheltered in the North Korean embassy. Nine Malaysians, three embassy staff and six relatives, flew home. In 2019 the murder charge against Siti Aisyah was dropped, and Doan Thi Huong pleaded guilty to causing injury and was sentenced to three years and four months. No one was convicted of murder. The body is in North Korea, and no grave has been made public.