KUALA LUMPUR: Kim Jong Nam was dead within 20 minutes of being attacked and would have suffered a “very painful death” as his major organs shut down, Malaysia’s health minister said on Sunday.

The estranged half-brother of the North Korean leader was killed with lethal nerve agent VX, police have revealed, after he was ambushed at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb 13.

“He died in the ambulance. He fainted in the clinic,” Health Minister S. Subramaniam told reporters. “From the time of the onset [of the attack] he died within 15 to 20 minutes.”

Autopsy results suggested the 45-year-old died from “very serious paralysis” due to a lethal nerve agent, Subramaniam said earlier on Sunday.

VX is so deadly it is listed by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction and overnight the scene of the killing in the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport was swept by civil defence personnel in hazmat suits before being declared safe. “VX only requires 10mg to be absorbed into the system to be lethal,” Subramaniam said. “The absorption level was so rapid that within a few minutes the guy had symptoms.”

Nerve agents prevent the proper operation of an enzyme that acts as the body’s “off switch” for glands and muscles. Without that switch, glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated, eventually tire and become unable to sustain breathing. “The muscle goes into a state of permanent contraction,” Subramaniam said, adding the dose was “so high” in this case the heart and lungs would have been rapidly affected.

Police had cordoned off parts of the airport after authorities pledged to check all locations the female suspects were known to have visited. But the delay puzzled some travellers.

Student Hariz Syafiq, 21, who was due to take a domestic flight later, said: “Yes, I’m worried a bit. Why didn’t they quarantine the airport? “It’s a bit strange.”

Both women suspected of carrying out the attack insisted they thought they were taking part in a prank video, although Malaysian police have said they knew what they were doing.

One of the two female suspects in custody, 25-year-old Indonesian Siti Aisyah, reportedly told a senior diplomat on Saturday she had been paid just 400 ringgit ($90) for her role, adding she believed she was handling a liquid like “baby oil”.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2017