Kim Jong-nam: CCTV images of female 'assassin' suspect emerge after Kim Jong Un's brother's poisoning

Images released after arrest of taxi driver who reportedly drove two female suspects from airport following Kim Jong-nam's death

Kim Jong-Nam, the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il (Getty Images)

CCTV images have emerged of a woman reported to be an alleged suspect in the "assassination" of Kim Jong-un’s brother.

The woman, who appears to be of Asian origin and wears a top with the letters "LOL" — an acronym for "laugh out loud" — printed across it, is suspected of being one of two female secret agents thought to have poisoned Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpula airport on Monday.

Mr Kim was reportedly attacked by two women with “poisoned needles” as he waited to board a flight back to Macau, where he was living in exile.

The CCTV images were released in local media following the arrest of a taxi driver who allegedly picked the two suspects up from the airport following the incident, prompting a search for the women, according to the Telegraph.

An unnamed senior police official told the newspaper: “We have already looked through the CCTV footage, hence we managed to arrest the taxi driver who had taken the two woman who carried out the assassination.”

The official reportedly added that the two women were believed to be Vietnamese, and that the taxi driver said they were thought to be agents of a foreign country, but would not speculate the validity of reports that they were hired by the North Korean leader to carry out the alleged murder.

Malaysian police are now said to be searching for the two suspected Vietnamese agents, who are believed to still be in the country.

Several media reports have alleged that the two suspects may already be dead, but none appear to have specified the cause of their assumed death.

The North Korean government has reportedly asked that a postmortem examination of the body does not take place — a request that has been denied by Malaysian authorities.

In the lead-up to his death, Mr Kim “felt like someone grabbed or held his face from behind”, according to police official Fadzil Ahmat, and subsequently died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.