Protests after Pakistan frees Christian woman sentenced to death over blasphemy

Supporters of religious and political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) hold their palms to pray in a protest, after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Karachi, Pakistan October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

By Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE (Reuters) – Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday freed a Christian woman from a death sentence for blasphemy against Islam and overturned her conviction, sparking angry protests and death threats from an ultra-Islamist party and cheers from human rights advocates.

New Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a warning to the religious right late in the evening that any prolonged blockade of streets would be met with action.

Asia Bibi, a mother of four, had been living on death row since 2010, when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws, which critics say are too harsh and often misused.

She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Bibi has always denied committing blasphemy.

The case has outraged Christians worldwide – Pope Francis said he personally prayed for Bibi – and has been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Bibi were assassinated.

Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who headed a special three-judge bench set up for the appeal, cited the Koran in the ruling, writing that “tolerance is the basic principle of Islam” and noting the religion condemns injustice and oppression.

In overturning her conviction, the ruling said the evidence against Bibi was insufficient.

Bibi did not appear in the courtroom and her whereabouts were a closely held secret for fear of attacks on her and her family. Many have speculated they will be forced to leave the country, but there was no confirmation of their plans.

Her lawyer called the court ruling “great news” for Pakistan.

“Asia Bibi has finally been served justice,” lawyer Saiful Mulook told Reuters. “Pakistan’s Supreme Court must be appreciated that it upheld the law of the land and didn’t succumb to any pressure.”

Supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan Islamist political party block the Faizabad junction to protest after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Islamabad, Pakistan October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

Supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan Islamist political party block the Faizabad junction to protest after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Islamabad, Pakistan October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

DEATH THREATS

Supporters of Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) immediately condemned Wednesday’s ruling and blocked roads in major cities, pelting police with stones in the eastern city of Lahore.

Street protests and blockades of major roads were spreading by mid-afternoon, paralyzing parts of Islamabad, Lahore and other cities.

One of the TLP’s top leaders called for the death of Nisar, the chief justice, and the two other judges on the panel.

“They all three deserve to be killed. Either their security should kill them, their driver kill them, or their cook kill them,” TLP co-founder Muhammad Afzal Qadri told a protest in Lahore.

“Whoever, who has got any access to them, kill them before the evening.”

He also called for the ouster of Khan’s new government of and for army officers to rise up against powerful military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who he said “should be sacked from the army”.

Khan addressed the nation in a televised speech on Wednesday night, supporting the court ruling and warning the ultra-Islamists not to disrupt the nation.

“We will not allow any damages to occur. We will not allow traffic to be blocked,” Khan said. “I appeal to you, do not push the state to the extent that it is forced to take action.”

The TLP was founded out of a movement supporting a bodyguard who assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer for advocating for Bibi in 2011. Federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was also killed after calling for her release.

In November, TLP staged a crippling blockade of Islamabad after small changes to a religious oath taken by election candidates, which it said were tantamount to blasphemy. Seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with the police and TLP’s supporters only dispersed after striking a deal with the military.

BLASPHEMY LAW CRITICIZED

In February, Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, and one of her daughters met Pope Francis shortly before Rome’s ancient Coliseum was lit in red one evening in solidarity with persecuted Christians, and Bibi in particular.

The pope told Bibi’s daughter: “I think often of your mother and I pray for her.”

Christians make up only about 2 percent of Pakistan’s population and are often discriminated against.

Dozens of Pakistanis – including many minority Christians or members of the Ahmadi faith – have been sentenced to death for blasphemy in the past decade, though no one has been executed.

Rights groups say the blasphemy law is exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores.

Additionally, at least 65 people have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, including a 23-year-old student beaten to death on his university campus last year.

“This is a landmark verdict,” said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International. “The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the country’s most vulnerable minorities.”

(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

New York witches aim hex at Supreme Court’s Brett Kavanaugh despite death threats

A self-proclaimed witch performs a hex on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh effigy at Catland Books in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., October 20, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Melissa Madara was not surprised to receive death threats on Friday as her Brooklyn witchcraft store prepared to host a public hexing of newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh this weekend.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks during his ceremonial public swearing-in, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks during his ceremonial public swearing-in, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

The planned casting of an anti-Kavanaugh spell, one of the more striking instances of politically disgruntled Americans turning to the supernatural when frustrated by democracy, has drawn backlash from some Christian groups but support from like-minded witch covens.

“It gives the people who are seeking agency a little bit of chance to have that back,” Madara said. The ritual was scheduled to be live-streamed on Facebook and Instagram at 8 p.m. EDT on Saturday (1200 GMT Sunday).

Seated at a desk phone among bird skulls and crystal balls at Catland Books, the occult shop she co-owns, Madara said the Kavanaugh hex is expected to be the most popular event the store has hosted since its 2013 opening, including spells aimed at President Donald Trump. Madara declined to provide details of what the latest ritual will entail.

More than 15,000 people who have seen Catland Books promotions on Facebook have expressed interest in attending the event, vastly exceeding the shop’s 60-person capacity.

Not everyone is a witchcraft fan. Madara said she had fielded numerous irate calls from critics, with at least one threatening violence. “Every time we host something like this there’s always people who like to call in with death threats or read us scripture,” she said.

As far as supporters go, some are sexual assault survivors still angry that the U.S. Senate confirmed Kavanaugh’s lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court despite accusations that he had sexually assaulted multiple women.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations, and an FBI investigation failed to corroborate his accusers’ accounts.

Democrats hope lingering outrage over Kavanaugh, particularly among women, will translate into election gains for them on Nov. 6. Republicans are likewise trying to seize on anger among conservatives at how they perceive Kavanaugh was mistreated.

Believers in mysticism on both sides of the political divide are taking matters into their own hands.

Plans for the Catland Books event have sparked “counter hexes” around the country by those seeking to undo the spell that the Brooklyn witches cast against Kavanaugh, Madara said.

Even mainstream clergy was joining the fray. Rev. Gary Thomas of the Diocese of San Jose in California said on Friday that he would include Kavanaugh in his prayers at Saturday mass.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Jessica Resnick-Ault and Cynthia Osterman)

Ukraine defends ruse faking journalist’s murder, others criticize alarmist stunt

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko meets with Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who was declared murdered and then later turned up alive, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and head of the state security service (SBU) Vasily Gritsak in Kiev, Ukraine May 30, 2018. Mykola Lazarenko/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

By Matthias Williams and Natalia Zinets

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine on Thursday defended the action of its state security services in faking the death of a Russian dissident journalist after international criticism, saying the bizarre ruse had been essential for protecting him.

Ukraine revealed on Wednesday that it had stage-managed the fake murder of Arkady Babchenko, a critic of the Kremlin who they said had been targeted by hit-men hired by Russia, in order to trace a trail back to Russia and expose plans for his, and other, state-sponsored assassinations.

But some criticized the incident, which involved the phoney distribution of lurid details about his shooting and photographs showing him apparently lying in a pool of blood, as a stunt in poor taste which had sparked a false outpouring of grief and finger-pointing at Russia.

Some said the operation had hurt Kiev’s credibility and played to Russian prejudices about Ukraine.

“Relieved that Arkadiy #Babchenko is alive!” the office of the OSCE’s Harlem Desir tweeted. “I deplore the decision to spread false information on the life of a journalist. It is the duty of the state to provide correct information to the public.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom who had expressed horror at Babchenko’s earlier reported murder, tweeted: “I am of course relieved that Arkady Babchenko is alive and well. Others are better placed to comment on the operation conducted by the Ukrainian Security Service.”

Michael Carpenter, the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, wrote on Twitter that “the cost in terms of the credibility of gov institutions is huge. Russia will exploit the hell out of this.”

However, he later added: “If the operation helped expose the chain of Russian intelligence operatives involved in this plot, it was well worth it.”

President Petro Poroshenko was among those who defended the ruse. In a video showing him greeting Babchenko, he said: “I am absolutely convinced there was no other way. You’re a great guy.”

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, in a sharp reaction, said he was surprised and shocked by “pseudo-moral” criticism from abroad and he defended a successful operation to save Babchenko’s life.

“If it had been possible to do such operations on other occasions we would do it. We saved a life, broke a potential network … that’s enough for us to be satisfied,” he told journalists.

Ukraine’s embassy in London, in a comment, asked for understanding from its international partners even when it took “unorthodox approaches” to fend off Russia’s hybrid attempts at destabilization.

Babchenko himself, who was greeted with a hug by Poroshenko on Wednesday night, thanked the security service for saving his life and was robust in defending their actions.

“The English press says operation has done more harm than good?” he said on Facebook. “You want good? Give me a UK passport and protection. And then you can lecture me how to save my family.”

“LIKE SHERLOCK HOLMES”

Anton Gerashchenko, a prominent lawmaker and adviser to the interior minister, who provided details of Babchenko’s “murder” on Tuesday night said he had been shot in the back by a man hiding in a stairwell, after returning home in Kiev from buying bread. His wife, it was said, found him in a pool of blood.

Gerashchenko reappeared on Wednesday explaining that a cloak-and-dagger operation had been necessary to trace the trail from the would-be assassin to his handlers.

They had to believe the plan to kill Babchenko had succeeded “and force them to take a number of actions that will be documented by the investigation,” he wrote on Facebook.

“After all, Arthur Conan Doyle’s hero Sherlock Holmes successfully used the method of staging his own death for the effective investigation of complex and intricate crimes. No matter how painful it was for his family and Dr. Watson.”

Very few people knew about the plan, in order to prevent any information leaking, he said. A picture of Babchenko lying in a pool of blood was released, police made a series of statements about their investigation and issued a sketch of the killer.

The head of the Ukrainian state security service (SBU), Vasyl Hrytsak, said on Wednesday that it had received information about a plot to kill Babchenko.

The SBU’s covert operation allowed it “to gather irrefutable evidence of the terrorist activities of Russian special services on the territory of Ukraine.” The security service detained a Ukrainian citizen who it said was recruited by Russia to find someone to kill Babchenko.

He also made clear that Babchenko’s wife had prior knowledge about the operation. “His family knew what measures we were taking, Arkady was warned in advance. He was under our control. The family also knew about everything.”

After Babchenko’s reported murder, the Ukrainian Prime Minister condemned the Russian state and a string of friendly countries produced statements in sympathy. Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who said he was not kept in the loop, spoke about the murder at the United Nations in New York.

Desir, the office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s representative on media freedom, flew to Kiev to meet Babchenko’s colleagues in a show of solidarity.

Babchenko on Wednesday recounted how the SBU had approached him a month ago to say someone had been paid $40,000 to carry out a hit job on him. They showed him documents that the would-be killers had, including his photo and passport details.

The Russians pressed the would-be assassin to carry out the order quickly but the Ukrainians managed to get the operation delayed with a series of obstacles, such as pretending that Babchenko had broken his leg or had on a trip abroad, he said.

They managed to delay the Russian attempt on Babchenko until after the Champions League soccer final, which Kiev hosted last weekend, the authorities said.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Central American ‘caravan’ women and children enter U.S., defying Trump

Members of a caravan of migrants from Central America line up to receive food near the San Ysidro checkpoint as the first fellow migrants entered U.S. territory to seek asylum on Monday, in Tijuana, Mexico April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Delphine Schrank

SAN YSIDRO PORT OF ENTRY (Reuters) – Hopes rose on Tuesday among a caravan of migrants who traveled from Central America to seek asylum in the United States after U.S. border authorities allowed the first small group of women and children entry from Mexico overnight.

Gathering people along the way, the caravan set off a month ago on a 2,000-mile (3,220-km) trek across Mexico to the U.S. border, drawing attention from American news media after President Donald Trump took to Twitter to demand such groups not be granted entry and urging stronger immigration laws.

Celebrations erupted on Monday night among dozens of migrants camped near the U.S. border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, after U.S. officials admitted eight women and children, fueling the determination of others to remain until they were admitted.

However, the U.S. Department of Justice late on Monday announced what it described as the first prosecutions against members of the caravan, filing criminal charges against 11 migrants accused of entering the country illegally about four miles (6 km) west of the San Ysidro, California, border crossing.

“The United States will not stand by as our immigration laws are ignored and our nation’s safety is jeopardized,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement announcing the charges.

The statement did not provide a figure on any other caravan members who might have also been detained.

On the asylum applicants, the Trump administration’s hands are tied by international rules obliging the United States to accept some applications. Most in the caravan said they were fleeing death threats, extortion and violence from powerful street gangs.

Dozens of members of the caravan slept in the open for a second cold desert night in the surroundings of the busy San Ysidro port of entry, after pumping fists and cheering the news late on Monday that Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) had opened the gate to eight women and children.

Those left behind said they would continue their sit-in until they were at least allowed to recount their stories to border officials and try to convince them that it was unsafe to go home. The caravan swelled to 1,500 people at one point but has since dwindled to a few hundred.

“We crossed the whole of Mexico,” said Angel Caceres, who said he fled Honduras with his 5-year-old son after his brother and nephew were murdered and his mother beaten and raped. They would stay, he said, “until the last person is in, as long as it takes.”

It was not clear when more of the group would be allowed to make their asylum bids. A CBP spokeswoman said the port of entry was congested with other undocumented immigrants, and that the caravan members might have to wait in Mexico temporarily.

The majority of asylum claims by Central Americans are ultimately unsuccessful, resulting in detention and deportation. The Trump administration says many claims are fake, aided by legal loopholes.

Vice President Mike Pence has accused the caravan’s organizers of persuading people to leave their homes to advance an “open borders” agenda.

Only two of the dozens of people in the caravan who spoke to Reuters over the past month said they were aware of the caravan’s existence before they left home. They said it had not played a role in their decision to flee what they described as appalling conditions.

Asylum seekers must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution at home, most often from a state entity. Central Americans fare badly in such claims because the state is rarely seen as directly responsible for the life-threatening situations they leave behind.

U.S. border authorities said in a statement over the weekend that some people associated with the caravan were caught trying to slip through the border fence.

Trump on Monday railed against a system that may see some of the caravan members freed in the United States until their cases are resolved, because a shortage of beds at detention centers and rules that limit how long women with children can be held.

“Catch and release is ridiculous. If they touch our property, if they touch our country, essentially you catch them and you release them into our country. That’s not acceptable to anybody, so we need a change in the law,” he said.

(Writing and additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; editing by Daniel Flynn, Raissa Kasolowsky and Jonathan Oatis)

‘We are watching you’: Political killings shake Mexico election

Policemen guard a crime scene where mayoral candidate Santana Cruz Bahena was gunned down at his home in the municipality of Hidalgotitlan, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico November 20, 2017. REUTERS/Angel Hernandez

By Lizbeth Diaz

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Magda Rubio had just launched her campaign for mayor of a small city in northern Mexico, when a chilling voice came through her cell phone. “Drop out,” the caller warned, “or be killed.”

It was the first of four death threats Rubio said she has received since January from the same well-spoken, anonymous man. She has stayed in the race in Guachochi, located in a mountainous region of Chihuahua state that is a key route for heroin trafficking. But two armed body guards now follow her round the clock.

“At 2 a.m., you start to get scared, and you say, ‘something bad is going on here’,” she said.

FILE PHOTO: Guachochi mayoral candidate Magda Rubio speaks during an interview with Reuters in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Guachochi mayoral candidate Magda Rubio speaks during an interview with Reuters in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo

An explosion of political assassinations in Mexico has cast a pall over nationwide elections slated for July 1, when voters will choose their next president and fill a slew of down-ballot posts.

At least 82 candidates and office holders have been killed since the electoral season kicked off in September, making this the bloodiest presidential race in recent history, according to a tally by Etellekt, a security consultancy based in Mexico City, and Reuters research.

Four were slain in the past week alone. They include Juan Carlos Andrade Magana, who was running for re-election as mayor of the hamlet of Jilotlan de los Dolores, located in Mexico’s western Jalisco state. His bullet-ridden body was discovered Sunday morning inside his Toyota Prius on the edge of town; Andrade had just attended a funeral. State prosecutors are investigating, but have made no arrests.

The victims hail from a variety of political parties, large and small, and most were running for local offices far removed from the national spotlight. The vast majority were shot. Most cases remain unsolved, the killers’ motives unclear.

But security experts suspect drug gangs are driving much of the bloodshed. With a record of about 3,400 mostly local offices up for grabs in July, Mexico’s warring cartels appear to be jostling for influence in city halls nationwide, according to Vicente Sanchez, a professor of public administration at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana.

He said crime bosses are looking to install friendly lawmakers, eliminate those of rivals and scare off would-be reformers who might be bad for business. Local governments are a lucrative source of contracts and kickbacks, while their police forces can be pressed into service of the cartels.

“Criminal gangs want to be sure that in the next government, they can maintain their power networks, which is why they are increasing attacks,” Sanchez said.

Electoral authorities have warned that the bloodshed could affect voter turnout in some areas. The killing spree has stunned even veteran observers who see it as an assault on Mexico’s democracy and the rule of law.

“State and local authorities are outgunned and outmaneuvered and the federal forces cannot be everywhere,” said Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. “There is an urgent need…to provide greater protection and insulation against organized crime.”

Mexico’s leaders are now scrambling to mount a response. Federal and state governments are providing candidates with bodyguards and, in some cases, bullet-proof vehicles. But the measures have proved largely ineffective as the death toll continue to rise.

FRAGILE TRUCES

Seeds of the current mayhem were planted more than a decade ago when the Mexican government, backed by the United States, set out to topple the heads of Mexico’s leading drug cartels.

The strategy succeeded in taking down kingpins such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the longtime boss of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, who now sits in a New York prison awaiting trial.

But the crackdown splintered established crime syndicates into dozens of competing gangs. Newcomers ratcheted up the savagery to intimidate rivals as well as police and public servants who might stand in their way.

A gang member from the state of Jalisco, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, explained how his cartel makes sure local officials tip them off to law enforcement actions.

“If they don’t, there will be friction” he said, a polite euphemism for a bullet.

Pre-election violence has hit particularly hard in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero, where at least eight candidates for local office have been slain in the past six months. Cartels with names like Los Ardillos (The Squirrels) and Los Tequileros (The Tequila Drinkers) are fighting there over extortion rackets and control of heroin and cocaine smuggling.

Catholic Bishop Salvador Rangel visited the city of Chilapa in early April to forge an election-season truce between warring factions to stop the killing.

It did not last. Within days, Chilapa’s police chief, Abdon Castrejon Legideno, was shot dead while on patrol. A Guerrero state spokesman said in a statement that authorities arrested a suspect found carrying a 9mm firearm near the scene.

The rising body count has been a millstone for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its deeply unpopular standard bearer, President Enrique Pena Nieto. Mexico’s leader has said little publicly about the spate of political killings.

The party is expected to fare poorly in the July vote. Pena Nieto is barred from a second term by Mexico’s constitution. The PRI’s candidate to replace him as president, Jose Antonio Meade, is polling well behind the front-runners.

Security ranks among voters’ biggest worries. Mexico posted a record of nearly 29,000 homicides last year, attributed mainly to organized crime and fallout from the drug war.

‘COYOTE LOOKING AFTER THE CHICKEN’

Some political candidates contacted by Reuters declined to comment or be identified out of fear of reprisals.

But in Chihuahua state, mayoral hopeful Rubio is speaking out about the death threats against her, hoping publicity will spur law enforcement to crack her case and deter any would-be attackers.

Rubio, 42, traveled to meet Reuters in the state’s biggest city, Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S. border from El Paso. Her husband and their four children accompanied her, but she requested that no information about them be revealed out of concern for their safety.

A lawyer and human rights activist, Rubio says she is running as an independent to prod government to do more for the region’s impoverished Raramuri indigenous people. She suspects whoever threatened her is not interested in change.

Her small town of Guachochi sits in the heart of the so-called Golden Triangle crisscrossing the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango, a region flush with leafy marijuana farms and fields dotted with pink and red opium poppies.

Rubio said she has suffered panic attacks since the anonymous caller began his warnings.

“They said, ‘we are watching you. It’s time for you to go’,” Rubio said.

Two local cops now shadow her, but Rubio said she is not resting easy. Cartels have a knack for infiltrating security details like a “coyote looking after the chicken,” she said.

Despite the risks, she said she wants to show her children and other women that Mexico’s institutions can work.

“I cannot quit,” Rubio said. “I’m here because I want a change in my country.”

(Refiles to amend number of posts up for election with latest information from national electoral institute, paragraph 8.)

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Ciudad Juarez; Additional reporting by Uriel Sanchez in Acapulco; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Marla Dickerson)

‘My life is in danger,’ North Korean leader’s half-brother quoted as saying months before poisoning

FILE PHOTO - Kim Jong Nam arrives at Beijing airport in Beijing, China, in this photo taken by Kyodo February 11, 2007. Picture taken February 11, 2007. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS/File Picture.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Kim Jong Nam, the poisoned half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, told a friend in Malaysia his life was in danger six months before he was killed, a police official told a court on Tuesday.

Two women, Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, have been charged with murdering Kim by smearing his face with VX, a banned chemical poison, at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13 last year.

Four North Korean fugitives have also been charged with murder.

Defence lawyers say the women thought they were playing a prank for a reality show, as they had been paid to do elsewhere at airports and shopping malls, and did not know they were poisoning Kim. They face the death penalty if convicted.

Kim arrived in Malaysia on Feb. 6 last year and was picked up at the airport by the driver of friend Tomie Yoshio, lead police investigator Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz said.

The driver was instructed to take Kim to his lodgings and other places he wanted to go after Kim told Yoshio his “life was in danger” during a prior visit to Malaysia.

“Six months before the incident on Feb. 13, Kim Jong Nam said ‘I am scared for my life and I want a driver’,” Wan Azirul said, citing police interviews with Yoshio.

He did not give any other details about Yoshio or his whereabouts.

Gooi Soon Seng, Siti Aisyah’s lawyer, has argued the killing was politically motivated, with key suspects linked to the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, suggesting his client was being made a scapegoat.

Kim had criticized his family’s dynastic rule of North Korea, some South Korean officials have said.

Under questioning, Wan Azirul agreed with Gooi that the two accused women had no motive for the killing, but denied accusations that the police investigation had been “lop-sided”.

Gooi had earlier asked about Hong Song Hac, a North Korean who had paid Siti Aisyah to act on a prank show and was caught on airport video recordings fleeing the country on the day of the killing.

Hong, one of the four North Koreans charged with the murder, was an official with the North Korean embassy in Indonesia from 2016 to 2017, Gooi told the court, citing records obtained from Indonesia’s foreign ministry.

Wan Azirul could not confirm Gooi’s assertion, admitting he had not looked into Hong’s background despite naming Hong as a suspect.

The trial resumes on Mar. 14.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Nick Macfie)