Family, friends describe ‘nice girl’ embroiled in assassination of North Korean leader’s half-brother

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A man walks past a house (red colour) where Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah used to live in Tambora district in Jakarta. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:27pm, 17 Feb 2017Updated: 9:40pm, 17 Feb 2017

Family and former neighbours of the Indonesian woman suspected of involvement in the audacious killing of the North Korean leader’s half-brother in Malaysia are stunned by the arrest of the young mother who they say was a polite and quiet “nice girl”.

Siti Aisyah, 25, is one of three people arrested by Malaysian police for possible involvement in the apparent assassination of Kim Jong-nam.

Between 2008 and 2011 she and her then-husband lived in a modest dwelling in a narrow alley of the densely populated Tambora neighbourhood in west Jakarta.

Her former father-in-law Tjia Liang Kiong, who lives in a nearby middle-class neighbourhood and last saw Aisyah in late January, described her as a “very kind, polite and respectful person”.

A view of the neighbourhood where Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah, a suspect in the murder of Kim Jong-nam, used to live in Tambora district in Jakarta. Photo: Reuters

“I was shocked to hear that she was arrested for murdering someone,” he said. “I don’t believe that she would commit such a crime or what the media says – that she is an intelligence agent.”

The three suspects – Aisyah, a woman carrying a Vietnamese passport and a man said to be Aisyah’s Malaysian boyfriend – were arrested separately on Wednesday and on Thursday.