Case Report of VX Poison

Late February, in an airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, two women approached Kim Jong Nam—half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un—from behind. They swiped what the victim described to nearby customer service agents as a “wet cloth” across his face, and fled. Shortly after, he was dead. Malaysian authorities say they’ve identified the substance as VX, a nerve agent that the United Nations classifies as a weapon of mass destruction.

It is known that a small quantity was used, being that the area was not turned “non-usable.” As the incident showed, though, smaller quantities are also dangerous. Even a tiny drop, as was used in this case, is lethal. On a larger scale, VX was one of the chemical weapons deployed in the Iran-Iraq war. The Kim Jong Nam case, though, would be the first VX assassination on record.

The nerve gas is so dangerous that all but a handful of countries agreed to destroy whatever stockpiles they had of VX as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. One of the handful of countries included North Korea. That raises the theory of whether the women were hired by the half brother to execute the assassination and whether or not the poison can be chemical-traced back to North Korea. However, while North Korea maintains a VX stockpile, and Kim Jong Un may well have considered his half-brother a threat to his rule, there’s yet no clear motive or direct link between the VX airport incident and North Korea. Malaysian police are seeking at least four North Korean suspects in connection with the murder. Two North Korean nationals, including a diplomat in Malaysia, are wanted for questioning. Police have detained a Vietnamese woman, an Indonesian woman and a North Korean man in connection with Kim’s death.