Suspect in killing N.Korean Kim stepbrother to be freed

A court in Malaysia is expected to release the Vietnamese national accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's stepbrother on May 3 after she agreed to plead guilty to a "lesser charge," her lawyer told reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.
The suspect, 30-year-old Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong, and another Indonesian woman were arrested on charges of poisoning Kim Jong-Nam at Kuala Lumpur's airport in February 2017 with the toxic nerve agent VX, an internationally prohibited chemical weapon.
The duo was caught by security cameras as they smeared the toxic agent on Kim's face.
Huong and the 27-year-old Indonesian national Siti Aisyah have been in jail for the last two years.
Aisyah was released on March 11 after prosecutors dropped charges against her.
Unlike Huong, forensic investigators found no trace of the toxic chemical in Aisyah's fingernails and she showed no poisoning symptoms.
Huong on Monday pleaded guilty to "purposely causing injury" to Kim by employing "dangerous means" in attacking him, according to the Singapore-based Channel News Asia.
Huong is expected to be released from prison next month following what her legal team said were usual sentence reductions from her prison term of over three years.
Both women deny the murder charge, as Aisyah claimed that they were tricked by some people -- who she thinks were Korean or Japanese -- into the assassination, believing it was a "prank" to be aired on TV.