Malaysia still waiting for Kim Jong-nam’s ‘next of kin’ to provide DNA match

Malaysia said on Tuesday it was still waiting for a family member of the murdered half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to claim his body, while the cause of death had yet to be determined.

“We hope that the next of kin comes,” Noor Hisham Abdullah, director general of health, said, clarifying that one of Kim Jong-nam’s sons was not in Malaysia as reported by some media.

Watch: Death of Kim Jong-nam sparks row between Malaysia and North Korea

The senior health ministry ­official also said that no wounds or obvious puncture marks were found during the postmortem on the 45-year-old’s body, nor was there any sign of a heart attack.

The government’s clarifications came a day after Reuters news service and some local ­media had reported that the son, Kim Han-sol, was due to arrive in the capital Kuala Lumpur on Monday evening from Macau.

A few of Malaysia’s Chinese-language newspapers reported yesterday that the son had ­entered the country through a special passage at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

His son has been the subject of a media frenzy as Malaysian authorities have been trying to receive DNA samples from next of kin to help them finalise their investigation on the cause of death.