North Korean leader’s slain half-brother was a CIA informant — Wall Street Journal

Kim Jong Nam, the stepbrother of North Korean pioneer Kim Jong Un who was killed in Malaysia in 2017, had been a witness for the US Central Intelligence Agency, the Wall Street Journal gave an account of Monday. 

The Journal refered to an anonymous "individual educated about the issue" for the report, and said numerous subtleties of Kim Jong Nam's association with the CIA stayed vague. 

Reuters couldn't autonomously affirm the story. The CIA declined to remark. 

The Journal cited the individual as saying "There was a nexus" between the CIA and Kim Jong Nam. 

"A few previous US authorities said the stepbrother, who had lived outside of North Korea for a long time and had no realized power base in Pyongyang, was probably not going to have the option to give subtleties of the cryptic nation's inward operations," the Journal said. 

The previous authorities additionally said Kim Jong Nam had been very likely in contact with security administrations of different nations, especially China's, the Journal said. 

Kim Jong Nam's job as a CIA source is referenced in another book about Kim Jong Un, "The Great Successor," by Washington Post columnist Anna Fifield that is expected to be distributed on Tuesday. Fifield says Kim Jong Nam more often than not met his handlers in Singapore and Malaysia, refering to a source with learning of the knowledge. 

The book says that surveillance camera film from Kim Jong Nam's last outing to Malaysia demonstrated him in a lodging lift with an Asian-looking man who was accounted for to be a US insight specialist. It said Kim's rucksack contained $120,000 in real money, which could have been installment for insight related exercises, or profit from his club organizations. 

South Korean and US authorities have said the North Korean specialists had requested the death of Kim Jong Nam, who had been disparaging of his family's dynastic standard. Pyongyang has denied the charge. 

Two ladies were accused of harming Kim Jong Nam by covering his face with fluid VX, a prohibited concoction weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airplane terminal in February 2017. Malaysia discharged Doan Thi Huong, who is Vietnamese, in May, and Indonesian Siti Aisyah in March. 

As indicated by the Journal, the individual said Kim Jong Nam had headed out to Malaysia in February 2017 to meet his CIA contact, in spite of the fact that that might not have been the sole reason for the excursion. 

US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore last June, appearing to fabricate individual altruism yet neglecting to concede to an arrangement to lift US authorizes in return for North Korea forsaking its atomic and rocket programs.