The defendants have barely been seen in public since their arrest just days after the murder of Kim Jong-Nam on February 13 as he waited to board a plane to Macau at Kuala Lumpur airport. The closely-watched trial will start Monday at Sham Alam High Court, just outside Kuala Lumpur, with Aisyah, 25, and Huong, 29, expected to plead not guilty before the prosecution begins presenting their case. The run-up to the trial has been marked by fierce criticism from the women’s lawyers who say they are figures of convenience. “To me this is another murder trial – we go by evidence,” Prosecutor Muhamad Iskandar Ahmad told AFP. The assassination sent the diplomatic temperature soaring between Pyongyang and Kuala Lumpur, with both countries expelling each other’s ambassadors and barring their citizens from leaving.

Source: New Strait Times September 29, 2017 04:07 UTC