Suspect in NK Assassination: I Got Paid $90 for 'Prank'

One of the women arrested in the airport slaying of the North Korean leader's half-brother says she thought she was smearing baby oil on her victim's face as part of a reality-show stunt. Siti Aisyah, who is being held in Malaysia, met with officials from her home country of Indonesia Saturday and told them she got paid $90 for what she thought was a harmless prank, reports the BBC. "She only said in general she met with some people who looked Japanese or Korean," says Indonesian Deputy Ambassador Andreano Erwin. "She only said she was given a kind of oil, like baby oil."

On Friday, Malaysian officials announced that Kim Jong Nam was killed with a deadly nerve agent called VX. Authorities think Aisyah and another woman wiped it on his face in the crowded airport in Kuala Lumpur, perhaps as a kind of one-two punch—one woman smeared one compound, the other a second, and they combined to create the nerve agent. For the record, Malaysian officials have said they're not buying Aisyah's story that she was duped, notes the Guardian. One other person is in custody, a North Korean male who lives in Malaysia, and authorities say seven other North Korean suspects are being sought, reports the Wall Street Journal. (More North Korea stories.)