This prank was dead serious.
One of King Jong Nam’s killers was duped into believing the banished prince’s assassination was nothing but a TV stunt — and had even used the murder technique on other men, convincing them to close their eyes then spraying them with water, Indonesian officials said Friday.
Siti Aisyah, 25, who was arrested this week, thought she was being paid to participate in a hidden-camera prank — unaware her real mission was to assassinate Kim Jong Un’s half brother with a poison-filled spray bottle, according to Indonesia police chief Tito Karnavian.
“I think she is a victim of a victim, so there are layers of victims here,” Indonesia’s Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said.
Before the murder, Aisyah and another woman had performed the stunt on other men — but with water instead of deadly poison.
“Such an action was done three or four times and they were given a few dollars for it, and with the last target, Kim Jong-nam, allegedly there were dangerous materials in the sprayer,” Karnavian said.
“She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents.”
Aisyah’s accomplice, 28-year-old Doan Thi Huong, who has also been arrested, told police she though the assassination was for a prank video as well, according to a China Press report.
She was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with word “LOL” during the attack at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
The deadly duo was approached by a man who asked her to recruit another woman for the stunt, the China Press reported.
That man is believed to be a spy, and he introduced Huong to the four male suspects authorities are still searching for, the newspaper said.
But workers at two hotels Huong stayed at before the murder told Reuters she behaved suspiciously before the attack.
“I remember she had wanted to extend her stay here, and was ready to pay with a stack of money in her hand,” said a staffer at Qlassic Hotel, where Huong chose the cheapest room with no windows.
She checked into a different hotel the next day — and cut off her hair with a pair scissor she’d borrowed from the front desk.
“There was hair strewn on the floor in the room, [Huong] had thrown some in the bin but there was still a mess,” a receptionist at the CityView Hotel said.
The day of the assassination, Huong was gone for most of the morning — but seemed “relaxed” when she returned.
It also emerged Friday that Jong Nam’s last words were uttered at the airport soon after the attack.
“Very painful, very painful, I was sprayed liquid,” he told a receptionist at a service counter.
Meanwhile, Malaysian authorities said Friday they won’t release the body of Kim Jong Nam without DNA from a relative.
North Korea demanded that Jong Nam’s body be handed over immediately, saying they would “categorically reject” the results of an autopsy that was conducted in Malaysia.
“The Malaysian side forced the post mortem without our permission and witnessing, we will categorically reject the result of the post mortem conducted unilaterally excluding our attendance,” the North Korean ambassador Kang Chol said in a statement.