Episode 21: Assassination by Prank - Part 2 - The Women Were Pawns to Everyone

Listen to Learn More about:

• North Korean Assassination Attempts

• The Assassination of Kim Jong Un's Alder Brother, Kim Jong Nam

• The Women who Murdered Kim Jong Nam, Sisti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong

• VX Nerve Agent

 Sources:

REFERENCES/ADDITIONAL READING/MEDIA:

Telegraph: Inside Story Women Assassinated Kim Jong Nam

BBC: World News Asia

5 News: CCTV footages shows Kim Jong Nam Assassinated

BBC: North Korea’s History of Assassinations and Kidnappings

NBC News: North Korea has a History of Assassination Attempts

WSJ: North Korean Leader’s Slain Half Brother was Said to have been a CIA Informant

Yet Again: Normalized Oppression: A brief History of North Korea

Fox News: Kim Jong Un and North Korean Cult Personality Explained

State.gov: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices- North Korea

The Guardian: How North Korea Got Away with the Assassination of Kim Jong Nam

The Daily Beast: How North Korea Tricked two Women into Assassinating Kim Jong Un’s Half Brother

MUSIC:

Brenner by Falls

Stormy Night by Ian Kelosky

Nocturne by Elision

Prowler by Hill

System Failure by Wicked Cinema

102 F by Dario Benedetti

Perfect Spades by Third Age

IMAGES:

Kuala Lumpur by Jakub Michankow on Wikimedia commons : License
Korea Seoul Blue House (Cheongwadae) Reception Center: By Steve46814 on Wikimedia commons : License

Who left the gate open? (Porton Down where they first developed vx nerve agent) by Sebastian Ballard on Wikimedia commons:

Kim Jong Un: by Kremlin.ru : License

People paying homage to the statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, by J.A. de Roo on wikimedia commons : License

Korea Map By Johannes Barre  On Wikimedia :License
Pyongyang at night Posted by LERK on Wikimedia commons : License

Pyongyang b y Roman Harak on Flickr : License

 Full Script

Siti Aisyah came from a tiny, impoverished village in Indonesia. When she was just in her teens, she took a job as a seamstress in Jakarta, in order to make money to help her family. It was a sweatshop; she typically worked 17-hour days. She started a relationship with the son of the sweatshop owner. They got married and had a son, all of this by the time she was 17. But within three years, they were divorced, and Siti, looking for better job opportunities, made the painful choice to leave her son behind with her ex-husband’s family, and leave Indonesia for the country of Malaysia. There were good jobs available in Kuala Lumpur, she heard.

 She was hired by the Flamingo, an upscale hotel by a lake. Her official job title was masseuse; although, in Malaysia, this is often a euphemism for sex work. We don’t know one way or another, but we know that whatever Siti’s professional responsibilities, they weren’t providing enough money for her and her family back home. She looked for after-hours work in nearby clubs and bars. This is what she was doing on an afternoon in January of 2017, sitting outside a nightclub during her job search, when a cab driver she knew told her that a friend of his was looking for a couple of young women to appear in some funny videos. 

 Doan Thi Huong came from Vietnam, where she worked in food service. Unlike Siti, she didn’t come from an impoverished background. She came from a successful family of farmers, performed well in school, and earned a college degree in accounting. But in a male-dominated culture, she struggled to find a long-term job with her accounting skills. She waited tables, and started to pick up jobs as an actor and model. She even appeared on Vietnam Idol, their country’s version of the internationally popular singing competition. Media profiles of her life have speculated that she was also involved in sex work at this time, but we don’t know for sure. What we do know is that, like Siti, Huong was a young woman working hard, and looking for opportunities.

 Just a side note for a moment about names. Indonesian naming culture puts the given name first, like in America, so we’ll refer to Siti Aisyah as Siti. But in Vietnam, the given name is last, so we’ll refer to Doan Thi Huong as Huong. 

 Huong had a friend in Hanoi [Huh-noy] who co-owned a bar. This friend, *Nguyễn Bích Thủy, [Win Bitt Too-eey]said that a man entered her bar one night and introduced himself as Li,[lee] a half Korean, half Vietnamese producer. Li told her he was producing a show, and offered her an acting job. Thủy had a son to take care of and no interest in acting, but she told Li that she had a good friend who could be perfect for the job. So, in January of 2017, Huong met Li; and, just like Siti, she was offered the chance to make money by appearing in some funny videos. She was told it was for a prank show, which would be filmed with a hidden camera. Huong had actually appeared on a prank show already, and Li seemed legitimate enough. So she took the job.

 But it was all a setup. There was no prank show; and what Siti and Huong actually did, was smear the chemical components of VX nerve agent onto the face of Kim Jong-nam, the eldest brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. They were the instruments who carried out his assassination. In our previous episode, we told you about the history of North Korea and the Kim family, the apparent motive for this elaborate and bizarre murder. 

 But as incredible as all this sounds, the nightmare these two women found themselves in was far from over. Throughout their lives, they had been exploited, by poverty, by sexism; and now the exploitation was coming from international politics. They were set up to take the fall for the people who actually planned this crime; and what followed as multiple nations got pulled into the ugly diplomatic aftermath had nothing to do with justice.

 They were imprisoned, cut off, their lives dangling in the balance. And even though the world almost completely denied them a role and a voice in deciding their fate; we wanted to tell this story in a way that kept these two human lives front and center.

***

Hi, I’m MF Thomas and this is the My Dark Path podcast. In every episode, we explore the fringes of history, science and the paranormal. So, if you geek out over these subjects, you’re among friends here at My Dark Path. Since friends stay in touch, please reach out to me on Instagram, sign up for our newsletter at mydarkpath.com, or just send an email to explore@mydarkpath.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Finally, thank you for listening and choosing to walk the Dark Paths of the world with me. Let’s get started with Episode 21: Assassination by Prank – Part 2 – the Women Were Pawns to Everyone.

PART ONE

In 1968, a team of 31 North Korean soldiers infiltrated South Korea – their mission was to raid the South Korean Presidential home – commonly known as Blue House – and assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The attempt didn’t go well – while taking cover in the mountains outside the capital city of Seoul, their unit was actually discovered by hikers. They hadn’t planned for this contingency, and, not knowing what to do, the North Korean soldiers lectured the hikers about communism, warned them very sternly not to tell anybody what they’d seen, and then let them go. The hikers, to their credit, went straight to law enforcement.

 The North Korean soldiers were skilled enough to stay hidden, though, and made it within just 100 meters of Blue House, disguised in South Korean military uniforms. But a single police officer had the presence of mind to call out the code word required for clearance – and when they failed to respond correctly, he raised the alarm. He was killed almost instantly, but it’s likely this act on his part saved the life of South Korea’s President – there’s a memorial to him to this day.

 When the North Koreans’ cover was blown, a horrible gun battle erupted. At least 90 South Koreans were killed, including many civilians, but the invaders were repelled. Only one was taken alive; many of the others took their own lives rather than be captured.

 In 1983, South Korea’s President was Chun Doo-hwan, and he also faced an assassination plot. He was going to lay a wreath at a mausoleum in Yangon [Yang-gone], which was then the capital of Burma. Three assassins from North Korea were waiting there, with bombs. But just by chance, the President’s vehicle was caught in traffic; and the assassins, mistakenly believing he had arrived, set off one of their bombs prematurely. 17 South Korean government officials and 4 Burmese citizens were killed in the blast.

 So North Korea has a long history of making violent, audacious attempts to strike at its perceived enemies. But after these high-profile disasters, which both failed at their objective and claimed large numbers of innocent lives; their methods became more subtle.

 In October of 2008, a woman from North Korean was tried and convicted in South Korea for attempting to orchestrate the murder of a number of South Korean intelligence officials. Her weapon of choice was needles, laced with poison.

 In August of 2011, a South Korean Christian pastor in the Chinese city of Dandong, suddenly collapsed and died. He was known to help defectors escape North Korea into China. His killers were never caught, but investigators believe that he fell victim to the same poison-tipped needles they had seen North Korea use before.

 Just days later, another pastor in China who worked with North Korean defectors was stabbed, this time with a poison-tipped knife; but he managed to survive.

 North Korean agents have always been willing to cross borders and engage in dramatic, high-risk attempts to eliminate their enemies. But when it came to the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, nothing about it resembled the pattern of previous schemes. It was far more brazen and strange, and more public than recent assassination attempts – in broad daylight in a busy airport terminal, with security cameras watching everywhere. One theory is that Kim Jong-un didn’t just want his older half-brother dead, but openly humiliated as he died. 

 The cameras and the eyewitnesses gave Malaysian investigators all the information they needed to piece together what had happened, and how. But as for who had done this – all the authorities had were Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong. They weren’t North Korean, had no political or military background, and no apparent reason to murder someone in broad daylight. But they had an extraordinary story to tell about how they came to be there on that day.

***

 Siti followed that cab driver friend of hers, and met a man who called himself James. James said that he was from Japan – which was a lie. He said they were producing a prank show. Her job would be to sneak up on unsuspecting passersby and smear lotion or baby oil on them. Hidden cameras would capture her performing these pranks. 

 James gave her some baby oil and invited her to test her sneaking skills – a trial run, if you will. Siti pulled off the trick, approaching a stranger from behind and rubbing the oil on her skin. James paid her $96 dollars on the spot – and a dollar will buy about twice as much in Malaysia as it does in America. This was a lot of money for just a few minutes of work. Siti was sold. She performed this prank repeatedly, in public, getting well compensated every time.

 After a few weeks, she was introduced to a new producer, whom she knew as Mr. Chang. Mr. Chang was able to communicate with her a bit better; James usually used Google Translate. When Mr. Chang saw her in action, they decided to up the stakes – asking her to try a practice run at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

 Meanwhile, Doan Thi Huong was following a similar track with the man she knew as Li, who was, in reality, a North Korean agent named Rhi Ji-hyon. Remember, Huong had actually participated in a prank show before, plus she had studied accounting; so when the producers asked how much money she’d like to make in a month, Huong aimed high. She asked for $1,000; and the producers agreed right away. 

 Just like Siti, she performed several rehearsal pranks, and proved herself capable of swiftly approaching someone and pulling off the move. To both women, it seemed like a fairly ridiculous prank – but in the age of social media and clilckbait, it didn’t seem any weirder than a lot of things that catch on.

 The night before Kim Jong-nam’s fatal trip to the airport, Siti was at the Hard Rock Café with some friends. It was her 25th birthday, and she had a little more money in her pocket than usual. Huong was at a hotel near the airport. Later on, authorities found security footage of her from the hotel, that showed her with her arms wrapped around a giant teddy bear. Huong said that the bear was actually given to her by her handlers, so she could practice wrapping her arms around someone from behind.

 The next morning was February 13th. North Korea’s agents knew that Kim Jong-nam was booked on a 10:50am flight bound for his home in Macau; where the Chinese government kept close watch on him and he would be much harder to reach. He was expected to arrive at Kuala Lumpur Airport to check in some time around 9 o’clock.

Siti arrived at the airport early in the morning, and met up with Mr. Chang at a coffee bar. It was here that she was told, for the first time, that this particular prank would be different; that there would be two pranksters instead of one. All the evidence we have suggests that Siti and Huong had never met before this day. Each of them had two “handlers” with her, to keep an eye on things and make sure the women got the right target. Siti remembers that this time, when the oily substance was spread on her hands, her handler told her to look away. She remembers that it smelled different than the oils they had used before. 

Kim Jong-nam entered the terminal. The handlers pointed him out. Siti went first, rubbing the oil onto his forehead, eyes, nose and mouth. She quickly said ‘sorry’ and ran away. She later described Jong-nam as looking stunned, but also afraid.  Moments later, Huong followed. Early reports from the BBC indicate that she actually used a cloth to rub his face, instead of her hands. 

But they succeeded just as they had practiced; the two substances combined, and turned into the chemical weapon that ended Kim Jong-nam’s life.

Siti and Huong each hurried to the restroom to wash their hands. At one point, in the security footage, both of them can be seen holding their hands out, away from their body; as if they were cautious about the substance on their hands. But it’s not consistent – one of them touches their hair. One adjusts their sunglasses. These little gestures, whatever hints the authorities had to guess at the state of mind of these women, were scrutinized endlessly in the months that followed. Both women insisted they had no idea that they had a deadly toxin on their hands. Huong said it was just that she didn’t want to get it on her clothes.

 As they ran to the restroom, their four handlers went that way as well. But the handlers had a different agenda. They changed their clothing, re-emerged, and, right on schedule, rendezvoused with a group of diplomatic officials from North Korea. These officials hustled them through customs and security, getting them on a plane that flew to Jakarta. Then they flew to Dubai, then Vladivostok, and finally back to Pyongyang, North Korea. Safe from all authorities.

 Siti and Huong were now on their own; and the airport security cameras had seen everything. Siti headed back to her masseuse job at the Flamingo to try and get back to her regular routine. She was tracked down and arrested a couple days after the attack.  Huong actually went back to the airport – she was under the impression that there was another prank to perform. She waited, but the producers never showed, and the cell phone number they gave her was suddenly disconnected. When she went out to hail a cab, airport security noticed her, and took her into custody. 

 If they were master assassins, they didn’t make any effort at a getaway. Within three days of the murder of Kim Jong-nam, they were both under arrest for the crime. 

PART TWO

VX nerve agent isn’t something you can just go out and buy. It was developed in the 1950’s at a British research facility called Porton Down – it was based on an insecticide that proved to be too dangerous to humans. At the facility, they had a code name for VX: “Purple Possum”. Porton Down is a place with an ominous history, and we’re studying up on stories related to it for a potential future episode. 

Only a small handful of countries are known to possess any VX, and containing the spread of it is serious business. Cuba was condemned for using it in the Angolan Civil War in the late 1980’s. And, not long ago, the United States bombed a pharmaceutical facility in Sudan because of intelligence that indicated it was producing VX for Iraq and Al-Qaeda. America had a large stockpile, but is in the final stages of disposing of it – one method is to load it into a boat, cut a hole in the hull, and let the boat sink.

It’s one of the most potent nerve agents known to man – the most infinitesimal amount on the skin can be lethal. Worse still, according to the CDC, VX is usually odorless and colorless. In its uncut form, it’s thick, like motor oil, but it can be diluted in a water supply and kill a great many people.

Depending on how a victim comes into contact, symptoms can show up immediately, or not for as much as 18 hours. Or, in the case of Kim Jong-nam, you can go from healthy to dead in less than an hour. There is an antidote, but obviously, that doesn’t help unless someone gets it to you in time.

When the Malaysian authorities began their investigation, there was a North Korean chemist named Ri Jong who was known to be living in Kuala Lumpur. It’s believed that his government placed him there, set him up with a home and a healthy allowance to live on. Remember how rare it is that the dictatorship of North Korea will allow anyone to leave their nation. 

Authorities took him into custody and searched his home, on the theory that he may have been the one to develop the VX for the assassination. They removed several chemical agents; but if they found proof, they didn’t publicize it. We’ll come back to Ri Jong Chol in a bit, his case illustrates just how quickly the stakes in this investigation became global.

 The high-profile half-brother of North Korea’s dictator, who had been sheltered and protected by the Chinese government, possibly trading secrets with America’s CIA, assassinated in Malaysia by one woman from Indonesia and another woman from Vietnam. How often does a single murder case involve six different nations right out of the gate? 

***

 It was no big surprise that North Korean officials immediately made resounding denials of any complicity in Kim Jong-nam’s death. Their Ambassador to Malaysia went so far as to suggest that he had simply died of a heart attack. An autopsy quickly put that theory to rest.

 So what about Siti and Huong? Were they trained assassins, part of the conspiracy? Or were they, as they claimed, innocent dupes participating in a fake prank show? The two women were charged with murder, pleaded not guilty, and their trial was going to hinge on this exact question. There was no denying they were at the airport, or that they’d applied the VX to Kim Jong-nam’s face. The trial would decide if they had done this knowingly. If they were convicted, the sentence was mandatory. Death by hanging.

***

 The two women were provided with experienced, prominent defense attorneys. They stuck to their story, and there was plenty of evidence to back it up, especially countless text messages between themselves and their handlers, the ones pretending to be TV producers. 

 The two women didn’t know one another before that day at the airport, and as we said, their casual demeanor and dress, Siti’s birthday celebration the night before, all indicate a belief that they weren’t doing anything serious. Most human beings aren’t cold-blooded killers; the reason why soldiers receive so much training is so that they can overcome the natural nerves and adrenaline that arise in a life-or-death situation.

And what about these others that they were involved with? Both sides of the case agreed that they had accomplices. The Malaysian police identified 8 North Korean suspects. 4 of them were confirmed to be at the airport that day, supervising Siti and Huong; but they’d escaped, hustled onto a plane like I mentioned earlier, now safely back in their home country. Three more suspects had taken shelter at North Korea’s embassy; still within Malaysia’s borders, but protected by international law.

The last North Korean suspect still in the country was that chemist, Ri Jong-chol, who had been living so handsomely in Kuala Lumpur with the support of his government for reasons unknown. Just one week after the assassination, that same North Korean Ambassador to Malaysia who had suggested a heart attack as the cause of death, now proclaimed that the guilty parties were already in custody – that Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong were responsible for everything – and that Malaysia was committing a human rights violation by keeping Ri Jong-chol in custody. After this spectacle, this ambassador was forced out of Malaysia.

 The diplomatic situation was escalating. Nine Malaysian nationals were actually in North Korea as the investigation began; and they were suddenly told that they couldn’t leave. While all this was sanitized with official language about security and ongoing investigations, it sounds an awful lot like two nations engaging in some low-key hostage-taking for leverage. After a few weeks of this, the suspects at the North Korean Embassy were released to return home. And Ri Jong-chol was released – lack of evidence is the official explanation. On March 3rd, he was deported back to North Korea. And, answering North Korea’s final demand, the body of Kim Jong-nam was returned to his home country. Then, at last, Malaysia’s nine citizens in North Korea were set free.

 This is the nightmare that Siti and Huong were trapped in. Although the government vocally denied any deal-making, it looks very much like Malaysia made the difficult choice to protect some of its own citizens, but at the cost of making these two women into scapegoats for the murder. The Malaysian Police Chief held a press conference where he described Siti and Huong, a hotel masseuse and a waitress with an accounting degree, as highly-trained assassins. Like many others, they cited the security footage of the women hurrying to the restroom as irrefutable proof.

 Red Notices were issued through Interpol for the four North Koreans who had been at the airport that day and slipped out of the country; which made them, technically, international fugitives. But there was little chance of them ever being caught outside of their country again. The only people left facing punishment were Siti and Huong.

PART THREE

The trial began on October 2nd, 2017, before Judge Datuk Azmi Ariffin. From the start, the prosecution was aggressive in their intent to focus all the guilt on Siti and Huong. Those four suspects wanted by Interpol? The prosecutors wouldn’t even say their names in court. The defense protested vehemently and continually attempted to introduce evidence; but the judge routinely sided with the prosecution. And in another strange wrinkle, the court didn’t even refer to the victim by his real name, Kim Jong-nam. This was a trial about the murder of Kim Chol, the alias on his passport and Facebook page. The Malaysian justice system knew full well who was murdered, but persisted with the lie to keep a spotlight away from North Korea. Diplomacy with a violent and unpredictable nuclear power was proving to be more important than justice for two women who were facing the literal gallows.

The prosecution only showed the security footage that backed up their case. The defense objected repeatedly; they had requested the full footage from the authorities but were being stonewalled. It was only when someone leaked the footage to the Japanese media that the defense was even able to see it. They seized on multiple examples of the two young women, on camera, acting like anything but professional killers.

The prosecution would say – the women washed their hands – so they must have known the substance was dangerous. But the defense would counter – why, then, didn’t they dispose of their outfits; why did they make no effort at all to evade security? Why did they go right back to their old routines and jobs after doing this deed in broad daylight?

According to Siti and Huong, they had told multiple friends and colleagues in the week before the crime that they were making money as part of a new prank show. But the police didn’t follow up, didn’t interview any of these witnesses who could have supported their story. The defense found itself crippled again, either through negligence or outright sabotage. Despite all the text messages between the women and the fake producers, despite Siti and Huong themselves posting about their practice pranks on social media for weeks, the judge unilaterally decided that, since he didn’t see a film crew at the airport, that it couldn’t be a TV show.

Imagine that for a moment – your life is on the line, your only defense is that you were told you were on a show where the cameras would be hidden, and the judge in your case doesn’t believe you because he doesn’t see any cameras. Kafka couldn’t have written it better.

And let’s talk about motive. What reason could these women possibly have to assassinate Kim Jong-nam? Or, if we’re accepting the use of his alibi in the trial, why was Kim Chol – a fictional person who only existed on a passport and a Facebook profile – so important to them that they would risk the death penalty to kill him in such a public spectacle? 

I haven’t told you the most astonishing part of this trial yet – Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong were never informed, by the court, or by their own defense counsel, who Kim Jong-nam really was. They had no idea what international disputes were erupting outside of the courtroom, no idea why these fake TV producers had set them up to kill this individual. No one told them.

The Malaysian media knew – at a press conference, they asked the deputy public prosecutor about the possibility of a political conspiracy. He responded that he didn’t care, that he hadn’t seen evidence of a conspiracy, that the North Koreans who escaped the country didn’t have VX on their hands; and that none of it mattered to the cause of justice in this case. They had their killers, and, with the eyes of the world on them, they were going to win.

After multiple postponements, the prosecution finally finished presenting their side of the case after seven months. At this point in the Malaysian legal system, the judge has the option to either dismiss the case outright, or allow it to continue with the defense’s side. Judge Ariffin took four months to make his decision. His judgment was 82 pages long, and he read all of it aloud in court; it took 2 ½ hours but we’ll give you the short version – because he saw the women hold their hands away from their body, he believed it must be that they knew they had a toxic substance on their hands. The trial would continue. But it wouldn’t be for seven months. Seven more months for Siti and Huong to stay in custody. Although they hadn’t known one another before they were arrested, going through this ordeal together had forged a bond between them. With the whole world seemingly indifferent to their plight, they provided support for each other.

In March of 2019, they finally returned to the courtroom. Doan Thi Huong was going to take the stand first, to testify in her own defense. Then – an extraordinary twist. The prosecution suddenly asked the court, with no explanation, to withdraw the charges against Siti Aisyah. Huong’s fellow defendant, her one friend through this ordeal, was told that she was free to go. Siti, stunned, confused, perhaps unwilling to trust the news at first, finally gave Huong a hug, stood up, and left the courthouse. A car was waiting for her, the first step in a journey home to her village in Indonesia.

Doan Thi Huong was now facing trial alone. So what happened?

***

It turns out, that behind the scenes during all of this, the Indonesian government had been applying intense pressure on the Malaysian government; even sending a letter directly to Malaysia’s Attorney General, requesting the release of their citizen. 

The government of Vietnam had made a request as well, on behalf of Doan Thi Huong, but an examination by journalists after the fact gives the impression that they simply didn’t push as hard. Vietnam was in a delicate situation; their government had much closer ties to North Korea than Indonesia did. North Korea had been one of the strongest allies of the Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War. Once again, the need to placate a rogue and violent ally was having a direct impact on the case. Indonesia had no such ties with North Korea, so they were free to be as relentless as they wanted on behalf of one of their own.

Huong had an emotional breakdown. To already be the victim of an outrageous injustice, to already be dealing with the trauma of feeling responsible for someone’s death, and now to have lost the one person in the world who was standing by her; all for reasons she couldn’t control. If she didn’t testify in her own defense, then the defense had no case and she would hang. But she was in no state to take the stand, wanted to refuse. The trial was postponed once again, because of her deteriorating health.

A few weeks later, everyone returned to the courtroom. But there were some new faces there – diplomats from the Vietnamese embassy. Speculation erupted immediately – why were they there? Had Vietnam overcome its fear of offending North Korea? Would Huong be released just like Siti?

The news was good, but not quite as good. Huong was not going to be let completely off the hook. Maybe the Malaysian officials needed to save face, to prove that they had convicted anyone at all in this highly visible debacle. Doan Thi Huong was made an offer – the murder charge would be dropped, and she would no longer have to fear the death penalty. But she would have to plead guilty to a lesser charge – causing harm by dangerous weapons or other means. The charge carried a sentence of three years and four months in prison, but Huong would get a 1/3rd reduction in the sentence if she took the deal. Don’t forget, by this point, she had already been in custody for more than two years – this would count towards her sentence, but she would still need to spend more time in jail. What choice did she have? She agreed.

When she walked out of the courtroom, guilty, in handcuffs, and on her way to prison, Huong had a giant smile on her face. For the first time, in this whole ordeal, she had a sign that someone out there was helping.

And then, one month later, on May 3rd, 2019, she was released; and flew home to Vietnam.

A horde of reporters were waiting for her, asking her how she felt about her ordeal. With extraordinary poise, she spoke briefly, saying that all she thought about in prison was her family, her country, and her desire to go home. She even hoped to resume her acting career. For Huong, like Siti, it was only now that they were free, that they learned who had really died that day back in the airport, and just how high-stakes the negotiations over their fate had become. There was sorrow, and fresh guilt; but, for the first time, there was an opportunity to get on with their lives.

Huong, in particular, became something of a celebrity in her home country; but it wasn’t necessarily the kind of fame most people would want. Many people in Vietnam still saw her as responsible, didn’t believe she was so completely in the dark about the assassination. Huong said that before her ordeal, she had seen the world through rose-colored glasses, that no matter what she suffered, she believed that people were inherently good. Now, she couldn’t help but live more cautiously, to not trust so willingly. Could any of us blame her? 

PART FOUR

We briefly mentioned the media rumors that Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong were involved in the sex trade in Malaysia. We didn’t spend much time on it, first because there isn’t much evidence one way or the other, and second because it had no relevance to their story. They don’t have to pass some moral test in order to deserve justice.

The only reason it could matter is if we want to take a look at just how few options these women had to make money, to support their families and try to make a life for themselves. When someone is denied opportunity on one hand, then presented with a chance for easy money on the other; they can wind up making choices they might not have imagined for themselves. The term “hospitality industry” suggests a dark path all its own – the promise of attention and affection from beautiful women at a restaurant, at a massage table, at a nightclub, lures in travelers; it’s either implicitly or explicitly promised as part of the package you pay for at hotels like the Flamingo. And the Flamingo is more likely to have a supply of women for this industry if those women don’t have alternatives.

In a foreign country with no safety net, Siti and Doan were vulnerable to exactly the kind of lie they were told by these fake TV producers. It must have sounded so appealing; so much so that they looked past any odd or suspicious details. How could they have possibly imagined the real purpose of this whole fake enterprise?

We called this episode “The Women Were Pawns to Everyone”; and I don’t think there’s any clearer lesson to draw from their experience. The jobs they had, the ease with which they were exploited, and then the terrifying speed with which their fate was buried in a jumble of diplomatic maneuvers and bureaucratic ass-covering; these two lives were just never a priority, there was always some purpose someone considered more important.

The men who organized this killing? The men who ordered it? The men who decided to negotiate for diplomatic wins using the fate of these women as just another card to play? Most of them – we’ll never even know their names. They’re protected – whether by the belligerence and shamelessness of North Korea, or by the excuse used countless times throughout history – that they were just doing their jobs.

I don’t see these two young women as any more naïve or foolish than anyone in their twenties, looking for fun, attention, and enough money to get somewhere in their lives, to enjoy a little taste of luxury once in awhile. They’ll always carry the memory of the role they played in someone’s death, and they have certainly been punished. But, just like the ongoing story of North Korea’s dictatorship didn’t end when the last major threat to Kim Jong-un’s rule was snuffed out at that airport, there’s an ongoing story that needs telling, when women like Siti and Huong can come terrifyingly close to a hangman’s noose for what they believed was a prank. In a way, they could be used as unwitting assassins for the same reason that they could theoretically be pressured to provide more hospitality than just a massage.

Siti and Doan wound up trapped because the world they lived in wanted pawns; pawns who could be manipulated, maneuvered to serve and protect more important pieces, and, when the time came, sacrificed. The relief we feel that, this time, these particular women escaped death, is small comfort when you consider that much darker truth. If everything that happened here could easily happen again; then the story isn’t over.

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Thank you for listening to My Dark Path. I’m MF Thomas, creator and host, and I produce the show with Ashley Whitesides and Evadne Hendrix; and our creative director is Dom Purdie. This story was prepared for us by Roseanne Sinclair. Our senior story editor is Nicholas Thurkettle and our fact-checker, making his debut with My Dark Path, is Nicholas Abraham; big thank yous to them and the entire My Dark Path team.

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Again, thanks for walking the dark paths of history, science and the paranormal with me. Until next time, good night.