Vietnamese suspect in Kim Jong Nam murder handed prison term

Shah Alam, Malaysia – The Vietnamese woman accused in the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother has been sentenced to three years and four months in prison.

The sentencing on Monday in Malaysia came after 30-year-old Doan Thi Huong pleaded guilty to a reduced charge.

The judge awarded her a remission of one third of the sentence, which cut her prison time by a third, saying it was aimed at “striking a balance between the interests of the public and the interests of the accused”.

“I’m very happy,” the handcuffed Huong told journalists from the dock while also thanking her cheering supporters, as well as the Vietnamese and Malaysian governments. “It is a fair sentence for me.”

Her lawyers said she was expected to be released in the first week of May. 

Earlier, the prosecution told the Shah Alam court that the Attorney General decided on an alternative charge of “voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means”, two weeks after rejecting Huong’s lawyers calls for the murder charge to be withdrawn.

That request followed the sudden withdrawal of the charge against Huong’s co-accused Siti Aisyah who is now back home in Indonesia.

The pair was accused of poisoning Kim Jong Nam with liquid VX at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. 

The new charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The people behind the plot to kill Kim Jong Nam “exploited and manipulated her to carry out their evil designs”, lead defence lawyer Hisyam Teoh Poh Teik told the judge before the sentencing.

The murder triggered a nationwide manhunt and a diplomatic crisis.

Four men from North Korea who were suspected of being behind the attack fled Malaysia the day Kim Jong Nam was killed, leaving Huong and Aisyah the only two people in custody in relation to the crime.