Malaysia rejects North Korean demand to hand over body

Malaysia today rejected Pyongyang's demand that it hand over the body of Kim Jong-Nam, the assassinated half-brother of North Korea's leader, saying it would only be released when his family provide DNA samples.
Detectives in Kuala Lumpur are trying to get to the bottom of the cloak-and-dagger murder that South Korea says was carried out by poison-wielding female agents working for their secretive northern neighbour.
North Korean ambassador Kang Chol said Pyongyang would reject the result of any Malaysian autopsy carried out without its permission and claimed the police were being pressured by hostile forces, notably South Korea.
"The Malaysian side forced the post-mortem without our permission and witnessing. We will categorically reject the result of the post-mortem conducted unilaterally," he told reporters gathered late today outside the morgue where the body is being held.

It was the first official comment from North Korea since the killing of Kim Jong-Nam at Kuala Lumpur international airport on Monday.
Forensic specialists today began testing samples from the dead man's body to try to determine the toxin that was apparently sprayed in his face as he readied to board a plane.

Despite the North Korean ambassador's demand to hand over the body, Kuala Lumpur has stood firm, saying it would not release it until procedures were complete.
"So far no family member or next of kin has come to identify or claim the body. We need a DNA sample of a family member to match the profile of the dead person," Selangor state police chief Abdul Samah Mat told AFP.

"North Korea has submitted a request to claim the body, but before we release the body we have to identify who the body belongs to," he said.
Police were meanwhile questioning two women -- one travelling on a Vietnamese passport and the other on an Indonesian document -- as well as a Malaysian man.
The drama erupted on Monday morning as Kim Jong-Nam, the estranged elder brother of Kim Jong-Un, prepared to board a plane to Macau.
Malaysian police say the chubby 45-year-old was jumped by two women who squirted some kind of liquid in his face.
Kim Jong-Nam told staff he was suffering from a headache and was taken to the airport clinic grimacing in pain, according to Malaysian media citing CCTV footage from the airport.

One of the women walked to a taxi rank immediately after the attack, according to the same footage.
He was rushed to hospital suffering from a seizure but was dead before he arrived.
South Korea has pointed the finger of blame at the North, citing a "standing order" from Kim Jong-Un to kill his sibling and a failed assassination bid in 2012 after he criticised the regime.
A Japanese journalist who knew and wrote a book on Kim Jong-Nam today said he was a courageous man who sought to reform his country.
"Even if it put him in danger, he wanted to tell his opinions to Pyongyang through me or other media," Yoji Gomi said in Tokyo.