Lawyers for Women in Kim Jong-nam Case Say They Were Scapegoated

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The two women who claim they were tricked into assassinating the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader appeared in court Thursday, where their lawyers argued that Malaysia’s decision to free three North Korean suspects ended any chance of bringing the real culprits to justice.

The prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, allowed the three suspects to leave the country two weeks ago in a deal his government negotiated with North Korea, making the women, one from Indonesia and one from Vietnam, the only suspects likely to be charged in the killing.

“That’s tantamount to a miscarriage of justice,” said Gooi Soon Seng, the lawyer representing the accused Indonesian, Siti Aisyah, in an interview after the court hearing. “The two girls are mere scapegoats. They are naïve girls who have been used by these people.”

Ms. Siti, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, are accused of smearing VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon, on the face of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of Kim Jong-un, at the Kuala Lumpur airport in February.

The women thought they were participating in a prank and had been promised at least $100 for it, Mr. Gooi said. They never received the money and now face the death penalty on murder charges.

The police have identified at least seven North Koreans they believe were involved in organizing the assassination, including the three who were allowed to leave Malaysia last month. All seven, including four who left the country hours after the killing, are thought to be back in North Korea.

South Korean officials accuse North Korea of orchestrating the killing, which eliminated a potential rival to the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

Analysts say that North Korea got the better of Malaysia by barring nine Malaysian diplomats and their families from leaving the North until Malaysia agreed to release Mr. Kim’s body and the three suspects, who had been holed up in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

“Najib wanted all the Malaysians back for domestic political reasons so he was willing to let North Korea get away with murder,” said James Chin, the director of the Asia Institute Tasmania at the University of Tasmania.

Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, the South Korean capital, said Malaysia had been “naïve.”

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“It wrapped up the matter in such a way that it was hard to believe that it was a legal case handled by a normal country,” he said. “I think Malaysia was caught unprepared by the North Korean ploy of holding the Malaysians hostage.”

The nine Malaysians in Pyongyang were diplomats assigned to North Korea and their relatives, who never faced any threat to their safety and were free to go about their daily lives, call home and send photos.

But analysts said that Mr. Najib could ill afford a hostage crisis heading into national elections to be held within the next 16 months.

“North Koreans usually get the best of any country forced into negotiating with it, including the U.S.,” said Oh Ei Sun, a former political secretary to Mr. Najib and an adjunct senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

As tensions have escalated recently over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and missile threats, the United States has ruled out reopening negotiations. The Malaysia deal offers a reminder of how difficult such talks can be.

“It is rather typical of North Korea to feel that it could blithely violate the rules like this — using a W.M.D. in an airport or taking hostages in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomacy,” said Robert E. Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University in South Korea, referring to weapons of mass destruction. “This is why I’m so skeptical of negotiating with them. It’s highly unlikely they’ll feel bound to an agreement.”

The Malaysian authorities obtained one concession: They were allowed to interview the North Korean suspects in the embassy before they left the country.

“We have obtained whatever we want from them,” Khalid Abu Bakar, the national police chief, told reporters at the time. “They have assisted us, and they have been allowed to leave.”

But the content of those interviews has not been made public, and in court in Sepang, south of Kuala Lumpur, on Thursday, the lawyers representing the two women protested that they had not been provided with recordings or transcripts, either.

“Honestly, I feel we have been handicapped in so many ways in this case,” Mr. Gooi said.

The Malaysian government did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Gooi said that both women had been working as escorts when they were recruited by the North Koreans and that they did not meet each other until the day of the attack.

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Ms. Siti, a part-time spa masseuse who also had a photo of herself posted on an outcall website, was recruited in January by a Malaysian scout working for the North Koreans, Mr. Gooi said. He found her at the Beach Club Cafe, a bar in Kuala Lumpur that is a well-known hangout for women from Asian countries seeking to make quick money.

Ms. Huong was recruited in December in Hanoi, he said.

The two women were handled by separate teams of North Korean men, who posed as being from Japan or China. Ms. Siti knew her handler as James, who she thought was Japanese.

After her arrest, the police retrieved a photo of James from her cellphone, Mr. Gooi said. James turned out to be Ri Ji U, one of the three North Korean suspects who had been allowed to leave Malaysia.

“James is central to our defense,” Mr. Gooi said.

The other two suspects allowed to leave Malaysia were Kim Uk Il, an employee of North Korea’s state-run airline, and Hyon Kwang Song, who as the embassy’s second secretary has diplomatic immunity.

Under the guidance of the North Korean handlers, Mr. Gooi said, the women practiced approaching strangers in public and smearing liquid on their faces. They believed their pranks would be shown in videos in Japan and China, perhaps kicking off their show business careers. They were paid $100 to $200 each time, he said.

Ms. Siti performed pranks on at least 10 occasions and Ms. Huong at least four, he said. Many of them took place in locations that Mr. Kim was known to frequent, including both terminals at the Kuala Lumpur airport and the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

Ms. Siti was flown to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she performed three pranks, each earning her $200. A trip planned for Macau, where Mr. Kim lived, was canceled at the last minute.

The two women were unaware that Mr. Kim had died in the attack until they were arrested, Mr. Gooi said.

Ms. Huong was arrested two days later when she returned to the airport believing she was supposed to perform another prank, he said. Ms. Siti was arrested the next morning.

Mr. Gooi said he did not question the government’s decision to allow the three suspects to leave in exchange for bringing the nine Malaysians home, but he argued that it should not have been done at the expense of the women.

“If they feel it is worthwhile to exchange the nine hostages for these three suspects,” he said, “then they must treat the women equally and release them.”