The recent killing of Kim Jong-nam was an act of terror concocted by North Korea’s state security and foreign ministries under the command of his half brother and leader Kim Jong-un, Seoul’s spy agency said Monday.

At a parliamentary briefing, the National Intelligence Service said it has concluded that four officials from the North’s State Security Ministry and two from the Foreign Ministry were involved in the Feb. 13 assassination in Malaysia, shifting from its initial view that the Reconnaissance General Bureau was the chief architect of the act.
 

The suspects had apparently split into two groups each in charge of the poisoning and backup, and separately induced the arrested two women -- a Vietnamese and Indonesian -- before uniting in Malaysia for the murder, lawmakers said. Other participants include an employee each from Koryo Air and a state-run trading firm.

“It was a case of terror directly led by the state security and foreign ministries, a state-led terror,” Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the Liberty Korea Party who chairs the parliamentary intelligence committee told reporters after the closed-door session.

Rep. Kim Byung-kee of the Democratic Party of Korea said, “In light of the composition of personnel, the NIS judged that it was a systematically conducted terror by Kim Jong-un.”

The agency’s assessment shored up Malaysian authorities’ interim probe results that found several North Koreans were implicated in the case, including Hyon Kwang-song, a second secretary at its embassy there, and a Koryo Air worker. They said four had fled the country shortly after the killing.

The NIS said Hyon works for the State Security Ministry.

But the NIS later explained it was still working to determine the prime mover behind the incident, though it did find that many State Security Ministry agents were engaged in the murder.

The agency also said Kim Won-hong, the state security minister who the Unification Ministry here said early this month has been sacked, is now under arrest after incurring the young leader’s rage for having given false reports.

Kim Won-hong had been deemed one of the most powerful persons in the regime, running a secret police and surveillance network across the reclusive nation. But in mid-January, he came under scrutiny from the ruling Workers’ Party’s organization and guidance department over perceived abuse of power and corruption, which led to his dismissal and demotion to a one-star general from four, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

His sacking triggered heated speculation over a persistent power struggle between the North’s state organs.

“At least five vice-ministerial officials of the ministry have also been shot to death by machine gun, and given the ongoing inspection, there are possibilities for further executions of working-level officials,” Kim Byung-kee added.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)