KUALA LUMPUR: The poison used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was VX nerve agent, which is listed as a chemical weapon and is internationally banned, Malaysian police announced Friday.
The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the substance is listed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Conventions of 1997 and 2005, to which North Korea is not a party.
VX nerve agent can be delivered in two compounds that are mixed at the last moment to create a lethal dose.
Police say that two women approached Kim at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 with the poison on their hands and rubbed it on his face one after the other.
VX is part of a family of nerve agents created decades ago during research into pesticides.
It is tasteless and odorless and kills by causing uncontrollable muscle contractions, which eventually stop the victim from breathing.
A dose of about 10 milligrams is enough to kill by skin contact, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Samples were taken from Kim’s skin and eyes. The poison was identified in a preliminary analysis by the Center for Chemical Weapons Analysis of the Chemistry Department of Malaysia, Khalid said.
The Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use and stockpiling of chemical weapons, and North Korea is among the world’s largest possessors of such weapons.
In 2014, the South Korean Defense Ministry said the North had stockpiled 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons and had a capacity to produce a variety of biological weapons.(The North has conducted five nuclear tests since 2006.)
Several world powers, including the United States and the former Soviet Union, once had large stockpiles of the nerve agent.
American stores of VX were destroyed under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, with incineration completed in 2012. In 1994 and 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo used homemade VX to attack three people, one of whom died.
North Korea is estimated to have a chemical weapons production capability of up to 4,500 metric tons during a typical year and 12,000 tons during a period of crisis.
It is widely reported to possess a large arsenal of chemical weapons, including mustard, phosgene and sarin gas, a US Congressional Research Service report said last year. – NEW YORK TIMES
