Malaysian police say Kim Jong Nam was killed by a banned chemical weapon

(Image credit: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images)

published 24 February 2017

Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was killed by a highly toxic VX nerve agent that the United Nations has classified as a weapon of mass destruction, Malaysian police said Friday.

Earlier this month, Kim Jong Nam was at the Kuala Lumpur airport when he said a woman grabbed his face and sprayed him with some sort of chemical; he died from a seizure on the way to the hospital. Authorities say a preliminary analysis of swabs taken of his face and eyes shows ethyl N-2-Diisopropylaminoethyl Methylphosphonothiolate, the most potent of all nerve agents, which is lethal after just a fraction of a drop is absorbed through the skin.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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