A woman accused of killing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother has reportedly told authorities that she thought she was participating in a TV prank show.
Indonesia’s national police chief told The Guardian that Siti Aisyah, 25, said she and another woman were asked to perform pranks in which they would convince men to close their eyes, and then spray the men with water.
“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,” chief Tito Karnavian told the paper. “She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents.”
The paper said that Aisyah and another woman are being investigated for the murder of Jong-nam, who died earlier this week on his way to the hospital after seeking help at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia after the spray left him feeling dizzy.
The allegations suggest a horror-show version of Ashton Kutcher’s prank show, “Punk’d” — though on “Punk’d,” everyone ended up laughing and happy at the end.
Jong-nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, was in line to potentially succeed his father and rule the nation until he was caught using a fake passport in 2001, claiming he simply wanted to visit Disneyland. He was shunned from the family and didn’t partake in North Korean politics for the remainder of his life.
South Korean and U.S. government sources both believe he was murdered by North Korean agents, according to Reuters, and Malaysia is one of the few countries that has diplomatic relations with North Korea.