This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was a CIA informant before he was assassinated in Malaysia in 2017, a report has claimed.

Citing an unnamed “person knowledgeable about the matter”, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday “there was a nexus” between Kim Jong-nam and the CIA, adding that many details of his relationship with the agency remained unclear.

According to the Journal’s source, Kim travelled to Malaysia in February 2017 to meet his CIA contact, although that may not have been the sole purpose of his trip.

But the newspaper said Kim, who was once considered the favourite to succeed his father, Kim Jong-il, as leader but fell out of favour, was probably unable to shed much light on the regime’s internal politics.

“Several former US officials said the half brother, who had lived outside of North Korea for many years and had no known power base in Pyongyang, was unlikely to be able to provide details of the secretive country’s inner workings,” it said.

The officials told the newspaper Kim had almost certainly been in contact with the security services of other countries, including China.

Two women were charged with poisoning Kim Jong-nam by smearing his face with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. Malaysia released Indonesian Siti Aisyah in March and Doan Thi Huong, who is Vietnamese, in May.

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The Journal’s claims could not be independently confirmed. But Anna Fifield, the Washington Post’s bureau chief in Beijing, said in her book The Great Successor: “King Jong-nam became an informant for the CIA … His brother would have considered talking to American spies a treacherous act. But Kim Jong-nam provided information to them, usually meeting his handlers in Singapore or Malaysia.”

The book said security camera footage from Kim’s last trip to Malaysia showed him in a hotel lift with an Asian-looking man who was reported to be a US intelligence agent. It said Kim’s backpack contained $120,000 in cash, which could have been payment for intelligence-related activities, or earnings from his casino businesses.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Photograph: EPA

South Korean and US officials have said North Korean authorities ordered Kim’s assassination in retaliation for his criticism of the family’s dynastic rule. Pyongyang has denied the allegation.

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore in June last year. Early optimism that the leaders’ personal rapport would lead to a deal on denuclearisation weakened after their most recent talks ended without an agreement and competing accounts of why the summit ended in disarray.

The CIA declined to comment on the Journal’s claims.

Reuters contributed to this story