North Korea

An Indonesian woman accused of assassinating the North Korean leader's half-brother was freed Monday after Malaysian prosecutors dropped a murder charge against her, in a shock decision a year and a half after she went on trial.

Siti Aisyah smiled as she was ushered through a pack of journalists and into a car outside the court, where she had been on trial alongside a Vietnamese woman for the murder of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017.

"I feel happy. I did not know this will happen. I did not expect it," said the 27-year-old, who was wearing a red headscarf.

It was a surprise move as the Shah Alam High Court, outside Kuala Lumpur, had been due only to hear the testimony of the Vietnamese accused Doan Thi Huong on Monday.

Lawyers for Huong, who sobbed in court as the charge against Aisyah was dropped, said they were seeking an adjournment.

The women had always denied murder, saying they were tricked by North Korean spies into carrying out the Cold War-style hit using VX nerve agent and believed it was a prank for a reality TV show.

Their lawyers presented them as scapegoats, saying that authorities were unable to catch the real killers. Four North Koreans — formally accused of the murder alongside the women — fled Malaysia shortly after the assassination.

The trial, which began in October 2017, had been due to resume Monday with the defence stage of proceedings after a break of several months.

But at the start of the hearing, prosecutor Muhammad Iskandar Ahmad requested that the murder charge against Aisyah be withdrawn and that she be given a discharge, without giving a reason.

- 'Merely a scapegoat' -

"Siti Aisyah is freed," judge Azmin Ariffin told the court, as he approved the request. "She can leave now."

Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia Rusdi Kirana told reporters outside court: "We are pleased with the court decision. We will try to fly Siti back to Indonesia today or as soon as possible."

Aisyah's lawyer Gooi Soon Seng said he was grateful for the decision.

"We still truly believe that she is merely a scapegoat and she's innocent," he said.

Prosecutors had presented their case in the first stage of the trial. Witnesses described how the victim — the estranged half-brother of Kim Jong Un and once seen as heir apparent to the North Korean leadership — died in agony shortly after being attacked.

CCTV footage seen in court during the trial showed the suspects rushing to separate bathrooms in the airport after the murder, before leaving in taxis.

Prosecutors likened the murder to the plot of a James Bond movie and argued the pair were well-trained assassins.

But their lawyers argued the four North Koreans were the masterminds, and provided the women with poison on the day of the murder before fleeing.

In August, a judge ruled there was sufficient evidence the suspects had engaged in a "well-planned conspiracy" with the North Koreans to murder Kim, and ordered that the trial continue to the defence stage.

South Korea has accused the North of ordering the hit, which Pyongyang denies.

Malaysia had been one of the nuclear-armed North's few allies but the assassination badly damaged ties, and led to the countries expelling each other's ambassadors.

A murder conviction carries a mandatory penalty of death in Malaysia. The government has vowed to abolish capital punishment for all crimes, although parliament still needs to vote on changing the law.

British singer-songwriter Joss Stone performed an informal gig in the capital of nuclear-armed North Korea as part of her ambitious project to perform in every country on earth.

Stone, who has performed in more than 175 countries since embarking on the Total World Tour five years ago, was pictured singing in a bar in Pyongyang in front of a small group of tourists and guides on Wednesday night.

The 31-year-old artist, who has recently sung in Syria, Pakistan and Iraq, announced the trip on Instagram Tuesday before boarding a plane to the North.

"It's a fine day to go to North Korea," she said in a video message taken at the Beijing Capital International Airport.

"We'll be getting on a plane very soon to go to Pyongyang...? A place in North Korea, anyway. It's gonna be fun," she added.

Stone said she was practicing a traditional Korean folk song 'Arirang' — listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in both the North and South — for her audience in Pyongyang.

The visit was arranged by Simon Cockerell, who runs Koryo Tours, which specialises in trips to the isolated country.

Cockerell described the performance as an "unofficial gig" and posted photos of Stone singing for around 40 tourists and guides at a bar he identified as the Yanggakdo cinema complex.

"Let's do it again with a full band and thousands of local fans not too far in the future!!" he wrote on his Instagram with a picture of Stone departing from the North Korean capital.

It is rare for North Korea to allow foreign musicians to perform for ordinary citizens, though last year a handful of South Korean pop artists were invited to Pyongyang amid a rapid rapprochement on the Korean peninsula.

Days before President Trump was set to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, a mysterious incident in Spain threatened to derail the entire high-stakes nuclear summit.

In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea’s Embassy in Madrid, restrained the staff with rope, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled the scene in two luxury vehicles.

The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense, a secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post.

The group’s alleged role in the attack has not previously been reported, and officials from the governments of North Korea, the United States, and Spain declined to comment on it.

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian prosecutors on Monday offered to reduce a murder charge against the Vietnamese woman who is the only suspect in custody for the killing of the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader.

Prosecutor Iskandar Ahmad told the court he received instruction from the attorney general to offer a lower "alternative charge" to Doan Thi Huong.

Huong's lawyer Salim Bashir told reporters the reduced charge was for causing hurt by a dangerous weapon, which carries a maximum of 10 years in jail if convicted.

He said she is likely to plead guilty to that charge. The hearing was halted briefly for Huong to decide whether to accept the offer.

Huong is the only suspect in custody after the attorney general's' stunning decision to drop the case against Indonesian Siti Aisyah on March 11 following high-level lobbying from Jakarta. Huong sought to be acquitted after Aisyah was freed, but prosecutors rejected her request.

The murder charge against each woman had alleged they colluded with four missing North Korean suspects to murder Kim Jong Nam. The women have said they thought they were taking part in a harmless prank for a TV show when they swiped their hands over his face with an oily substance identified as VX nerve agent. The four North Koreans fled the country the morning of Feb. 13, 2017, after the two women had accosted Kim in a Kuala Lumpur airport terminal.

The High Court judge last August had found there was enough evidence to infer that Aisyah, Huong and the four missing North Koreans engaged in a "well-planned conspiracy" to kill Kim and had called on the two women to present their defense.

Huong's lawyers have accused Attorney-General Tommy Thomas of being unfair and discriminating against Huong. The Bar Council and some lawmakers have urged Thomas to be transparent and explain his decision, although he isn't obliged to do so. Vietnam's government has also voiced displeasure and urged Malaysia to be fair and release Huong.

Lawyers for the women have previously said that they were pawns in a political assassination with clear links to the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and that the prosecution failed to show the women had any intention to kill. Intent to kill is crucial to a murder charge under Malaysian law.

Huong would face a death sentence if she is convicted of murder.

Malaysian officials have never officially accused North Korea and have made it clear they don't want the trial politicized.

Kim Jong Nam was the eldest son in the current generation of North Korea's ruling family. He had been living abroad for years but could have been seen as a threat to Kim Jong Un's rule.