North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's half-brother Kim Jong Nam was a Central Intelligence Agency source who held several meetings with operatives, a person with knowledge of the matter told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, was killed in 2017, after being attacked with a nerve agent in the Kuala Lumpur airport. After falling out of favor with his father in the early 2000s, Kim Jong Nam left North Korea, and primarily lived in Macau. North Korea is a secretive country, and the United States is always trying to gather information on its inner workings, but it's unclear what information Kim Jong Nam would have been able to share with the CIA.
Several former U.S. officials told the Journal that Kim Jong Nam would most likely have been talking with several intelligence and security services, including China's. A new book about Kim Jong Un, The Great Successor, is out Tuesday, and the Journal reports it's expected to contain information about Kim Jong Nam's role as a CIA source.
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