Tag Archives: Police

Out of the shadows: Manila’s meth dealers back on the streets as cops pull back

A man prepares to use "Shabu", or methamphetamine, inside a drug den in Manila, Philippines February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Clare Baldwin and Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs had until three weeks ago driven the trade in crystal methamphetamine underground, according to residents and drug users in some of the slum areas of the nation’s capital city.

As thousands of users and dealers were shot dead by police and vigilantes in the first seven months after Duterte came to power last June, open dealing in the drug, known here by its street name shabu, largely stopped. Instead, deals were done on the quiet between people who knew each other, maybe with a text message first.

But since Duterte ordered the Philippine National Police(PNP) to stand down from the drugs war last month, after declaring the force “rotten to the core”, the drugs trade has come back out of the shadows, more than half a dozen drug users and dealers in some of Manila’s toughest areas said in interviews. Many spoke on condition that only their first names be used in this story.

Beside one of the less-used railroad tracks in Manila – a grassy area scattered with human excrement only a few miles from the gleaming high-rises of the Makati business district – shabu was easily available last week, costing just a few pesos (cents) per hit. Residents said that when they traveled on the illegal trolleys that ferry people for a few pesos along the track when there are no trains in sight, a fellow passenger will often offer them a sachet of the drug.

Eusebio, 52, who pushes a wood and bamboo trolley on the track for a living, said dealers sometimes walk alongside calling out: “How much are you going to buy?”

“Now that the operations have been suspended, drugs have become rampant again,” he said. “Those who were hiding have resurfaced.”Another trolley-pusher, Boyser, 59, told two Reuters journalists: “If you weren’t reporters, they would offer you drugs.”

DRUG DEN

In a dark cinderblock room that serves as a drug den in another part of Manila, there were similar stories from users.

“We have more freedom now,” Jason, a 39-year-old bartender told a visiting reporter as he inhaled shabu smoke.  “All the users are still users, except those who have been killed,” he said, adding that he has used shabu for almost two decades.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since Duterte was sworn in almost eight months ago, about 2,500 of whom were killed in official police anti-narcotics operations. Human rights groups believe many of the others were extra-judicial executions committed as part of the war on drugs, and in cooperation with the police – a claim the Duterte administration has vehemently denied.

The president’s office did not respond to a list of emailed questions about the drugs war and whether dealers were now openly back on the streets.

Duterte has repeatedly said he will hunt down drug lords and other “high value” targets and to date, there have been a handful of large-scale seizures and raids on shabu laboratories. But most of those killed in the war on drugs have been small-time dealers and users in some of the country’s poorest neighborhoods.

The PNP stopped publishing an official tally of drug war killings from police operations on Jan. 31 when Duterte ordered the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to take over the campaign.

FEWER KILLINGS

According to reporters and photographers from Reuters and Philippine news organizations working the crime beat on the night shift, “vigilante-style” killings of drug suspects have continued, but at a much slower pace. Police data shows 398 people were killed nationwide in the first 20 days of February. Details of the killings were not provided and it was unclear how many were drug-related.

Some anti-narcotics experts say they will not be surprised if it turns out that the drugs war has been ineffective. They say that ruthless operations against drugs, like Duterte’s, have failed elsewhere in the world.

Colombia’s former president, César Gaviria, said in a New York Times column earlier this month that his country’s long war on drugs not only failed to eradicate drug production, trafficking and consumption but also pushed drugs and crime into neighboring countries, while “tens of thousands of people were slaughtered.”

Thailand launched a “war on drugs” in 2003 that killed about 2,800 people in three months. But figures show it had no lasting impact on meth supply or demand in Thailand. “The world has lost the war on drugs, not only Thailand,” the country’s then Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya told Reuters last July.

When an aggressive anti-drugs campaign begins, supplies may be tight for a while, street prices may spike, but ultimately drug usage does not drop, say those who have studied the results.

“We don’t know of any examples from around the world where very hardline approaches have worked effectively,” said Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.  “They can temporarily disrupt street business, but they don’t disrupt demand.”

LOST MOMENTUM

Some police officers told Reuters that they had received reports of increased street-level drug activity since they were ordered to stand down.

Manila Police Commander Olivia Sagaysay, who oversees four precincts in the city, said the war on drugs had lost momentum and morale among her officers had suffered since they were ordered to stand down.

“It’s depressing,” she said. “But who are we not to follow the higher-ups?”

She said she expected the trade to increase but maybe not return to its previous levels because “networks were disrupted” and “pushers were killed.”

In a written response to questions from Reuters about the impact of Duterte’s campaign on the street-level shabu trade, the PDEA said that “based on reports gathered, the supply of illegal drugs in some areas are still considerably abundant.”

The PDEA attributed low street prices for shabu – prices overall have risen only minimally since the war on drugs began and in some areas have fallen – to a “lack of customers” or drug traffickers trying to get rid of their supply “in order to avoid arrest.” It said drugs were being hoarded and that it was difficult for users to transact directly with traffickers. The PDEA did not provide evidence for any of its assessments.

PNP spokesman Dionardo Carlos said drugs would return to the streets because it was “a billion peso business” and “money talks”.

In his view, though, the drug war had not failed. “We hit the target and now it goes back to PDEA.  As far as the PNP is concerned we did our part in the past 7 months. I hope PDEA will be able to do their part.”

The PDEA has just about 1,800 people on its rolls compared with the national police force of 160,000. Of the existing PDEA personnel, only about half are field operatives.

PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon said his agency will add staff and that the president would soon be issuing an executive order to set up an anti-illegal drugs inter-agency council and task force that would also draw from the military, the National Bureau of Investigation and the PNP. The task force will be charged with pursuing the war on drugs.

“There is a temporary vacuum of warm bodies but it won’t be long,” Carreon said, adding that those involved in the drug trade would be wrong to think they were safe.

“If that’s their perception, it won’t last long,” he said. “They will find out in the hardest way that they are terribly wrong.”

“GO AFTER COOKERS”

Still, Jason, the bartender who is a shabu user, said Duterte’s campaign was not successful because he targeted the wrong people.

If authorities had gone after the “cookers”, the people manufacturing the drugs, instead of users and small dealers, people like him would be unable to buy and would move on. As it is, Jason said, shabu is always in plentiful supply, adding he was addicted and the drug eliminated any fear he may have had of being shot by police or vigilantes.

As he spoke, Jason poured white crystals into a long strip of aluminum foil folded into a trough, tilted it slightly and held a flame below. Almost immediately, it produced a thick white smoke, which he sucked up through a narrow aluminum foil straw.

He then began speaking again, more animatedly. “I buy drugs every day!” he said.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Neil Jerome Morales; Additional reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Erik De Castro; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Martin Howell)

U.S. attorney general pushes to stop suing local police

A bitterly divided Senate confirmed Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Tuesday that the federal government should stop spending money to sue local police departments, signaling a sharp departure from the previous administration’s policy toward law enforcement exhibiting patterns of racism or excessive force.

In his speech to the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, Sessions said the Justice Department should instead use its resources to help police figure out the best way to fight crime.

He announced the formation of a Justice Department task force to look at deficiencies in current practices to combat crime and propose new legislation.

The Justice Department is still weighing whether it should impose reforms on the Chicago Police Department, which was the subject of a critical report by the Obama administration.

Sessions said violent crime had risen since 2014, although it is down almost half since the early 1990s.

Federal Bureau of Investigation crime statistics for 2015, the latest year for which complete data is available, showed violent crimes increased 3.9 percent from 2014, while property crimes declined by 2.6 percent. The rise in violent crime came after two years of decreases, not decades of declines as Sessions suggested.

The Obama administration began several investigations into police departments that it said were unfairly targeting minorities and using excessive force. Videos of such incidents shared online have sparked protests in cities from Baltimore to Ferguson, Missouri.

The address to the attorneys general, who are responsible for prosecuting state-level crimes, signaled that the Trump administration would commit itself to supporting police rather than questioning their practices.

“To confront the challenge of rising crime, we must rely heavily on local law enforcement to lead the way,” Sessions said in prepared remarks. “And they must know they have our steadfast support.”

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Police search Berlin properties linked to Christmas market attacker’s mosque

Anis Amri, the Tunisian suspect of the Berlin Christmas market attack, is seen in this photo taken from security cameras at Brussels North train station, Belgium, December 21, 2016. Federal Public Prosecutor's Office/Handout via Reuters.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German police on Tuesday raided more than 20 sites in Berlin with links to a mosque visited by a Tunisian asylum seeker who killed 12 people in an attack on a Christmas market in December.

In the raids, which began at 0500 GMT, some 450 officers searched apartments, two companies’ premises and six prison cells connected to an organisation called “Fussilet 33 e.V.”, which ran the mosque, the police said in a statement.

“The cause for these raids is the fact that Berlin’s state interior ministry has issued a ban against the ‘Fussilet 33’ organisation,” Berlin police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel said.

The Tunisian Anis Amri killed 12 people and injured dozens more on Dec. 19 by driving a truck into a crowded festive market in Berlin. [nL5N1EE5EG] Amri, who pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was shot dead by Italian police in Milan four days later.

Andreas Geisel, interior minister for the state of Berlin, told a news conference that Amri had regularly visited the mosque run by “Fussilet 33 e.V.” including on Dec. 19, only an hour or so before attacking the Christmas market.

The mosque has now been shut down, but Geisel said this was not only because of the Amri connection. Some senior members have been charged or already sentenced for supporting terrorist organisations abroad and preparing acts of violent subversion against the state, he said.

Geisel said Berlin was a cosmopolitan and tolerant city that welcomed people who are persecuted in their home countries or whose lives are in danger, and that should remain the case.

“But people who come here to carry out violent acts or preach violence or who, from Berlin, support organisations that carry out Islamist terrorism in countries like Syria and Iraq or collect money for that, train fighters for jihad, organise trips to these areas and recruit fighters for Islamist terrorism, are not welcome here,” he said.

Geisel said there had so far been no indications that members of the mosque organisation were planning further attacks in Berlin.

On Jan. 31 German police arrested three men on suspicion of having close links to Islamic State militants and planning to travel to the Middle East for combat training. Newspaper Bild reported that those men were frequent visitors at a mosque in the Berlin district of Moabit that Amri also used to visit. [nL5N1FL7DW]

(Reporting by Michelle Martin and Reuters TV; Editing by Louise Ireland and Gareth Jones)

One dead after man drives into crowd in Germany, no sign of terrorism: authorities

By Andreas Burger

HEIDELBERG, Germany (Reuters) – A man died and two other people were injured after a 35-year-old German man drove into a crowd standing near a bakery in the southwestern town of Heidelberg on Saturday, but the authorities said there were no indications that it was a terrorist attack.

The 73-year-old man who died in hospital from his injuries was also German. The two other people injured, a 32-year-old Austrian man and a 29-year-old woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina, also received hospital treatment but were then discharged, police and prosecutors said in a statement.

“Based on investigations so far, there are no signs of a terrorist motive,” they said.

According to the statement, the suspect was seen getting out of the car with a knife and was later tracked down to an old swimming pool. He was taken to a hospital in Heidelberg having been shot by police while being arrested, leaving him seriously injured.

He has since been operated on but nothing further is known about the current state of his health, the police and prosecutors said.

Regional newspaper Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung said the suspect was not fit to be questioned.

Police spokesman Heiko Kranz said experts were gathering evidence such as DNA traces and fingerprints and examining the contents of the car, adding that the suspect would be interviewed if he was fit to be questioned.

Investigations by the public prosecutors’ office in Heidelberg and the town’s criminal police were continuing, police said.

The Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung newspaper said the suspect had stopped at a red traffic light and when it turned green put his foot down before hitting the group of people at high speed and smashing into a pillar.

The German authorities are on high alert after a failed Tunisian asylum-seeker drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on Dec. 19, killing 12 people.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin, Andreas Kenner and Andreas Burger; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

South African police break up anti-immigrant protests

Somali nationals argue with police during clashes in Pretoria, South Africa, February 24, 2017. REUTERS/ James Oatway

By TJ Strydom

PRETORIA (Reuters) – South African police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse rival marches by hundreds of protesters in Pretoria on Friday, after mobs looted stores this week believed to belong to immigrants.

Anti-immigrant violence has flared sporadically in South Africa against a background of near-record unemployment, with foreigners being accused of taking jobs from citizens and involvement in crime.

Armed police had formed a barrier between rival crowds of citizens and non-nationals marching in Pretoria, but both sides began shouting at one another and brandishing rocks and sticks, prompting police to disperse the angry mobs.

Shops were shuttered in Marabastad, an area of western Pretoria where many foreign nationals have their stores, and roads were blocked as the marchers gathered. Some of the foreigners carried rocks and sticks, saying they were ready to protect their stores.

One Somali shopowner, 37, said he feared for his life. “My shops get looted a few times a year,” he said.

The marches follow the looting this week of at least 20 small businesses believed to belong to Nigerian and Pakistani immigrants. Residents said they had attacked the shops because they were dens of prostitution and drug dealing. Some said they had lost jobs to the foreigners.

A 34-year old South African, who declined to be named, said a Zimbabwean took his job at a manufacturing plant because he was willing to work for less.

“The police must leave us alone so we can sort them out,” he said, pointing at a group of foreign shop owners.

Random acts of violence, looting and destruction of property had occurred, Acting National Police Commissioner Khomotso Phahlane said.

“Over 24-hour period, 156 have been arrested,” Phahlane told a news conference, and “those inciting violence will face prosecution.” It was unclear how many of those in custody were South Africans and how many foreigners.

President Jacob Zuma condemned acts of violence between citizens and non-nationals, his office said in a statement on Friday. Zuma appealed to citizens not to blame all crime on non-nationals.

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Thursday acknowledged violence had flared up against foreigners this year, adding that “unfortunately, xenophobic violence is not new in South Africa.”

In retaliation, Nigerian protesters vandalized the head office of South African mobile phone company MTN in Abuja on Thursday.

Earlier this week, Nigeria’s foreign ministry said it would summon South Africa’s envoy to raise its concerns over “xenophobic attacks” on Nigerians, other Africans and Pakistanis.

(Writing by James Macharia, editing by Larry King)

Police arrest 24 in California protest over off-duty officer shooting

(Reuters) – Two dozen people were arrested in Anaheim, California, during a protest calling for the arrest of an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who fired a gun during a scuffle with a teenager outside of his Anaheim home, police said on Thursday.

Nobody was wounded in the shooting incident, which occurred on Tuesday, local media reported.

Some of the 300 protesters threw rocks at police officers in riot gear, kicked squad cars and blocked intersections as they marched and chanted “hands up, don’t shoot” and “whose streets, our streets” on Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Some 24 people were arrested and face misdemeanor charges including failure to disperse, the Anaheim Police Department said on social media early on Thursday.

The incident that ignited the protest was captured on a cell phone video that appeared to show a man holding a teenager’s collar as they scuffled with each other in front of a house in a residential neighborhood.

The video, which was circulated on social media and local news, then showed a teenager tackling the man into a line of shrubs and then another teenager punching him.

As several young people began surrounding the man, who still had a hold of the teenager’s collar, he pulled a gun out of his waistband and fired it once, the footage showed.

A 13-year-old and 15-year-old were arrested after the incident, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The identities of the teenagers who were arrested and the officer have not been made public. The incident comes amid a national debate over the role of law enforcement officers and their use of sometimes deadly force against minorities.

The Los Angeles Police Department has placed the officer on administrative leave as it investigates the incident and reviews the video, the department said in a statement.

The confrontation began with “ongoing issues” involving a group of juveniles walking on the lawn of a Los Angeles Police Department officer’s home in Anaheim, police told the Times.

“The videos posted online do not depict the entire event,” the Anaheim Police Department said on Facebook.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Protecting Trump Tower cost NY City $24 million from election to inauguration

FILE PHOTO - Police and fire crew stand outside Trump Tower following a report of a suspicious package in Manhattan, New York City, U.S. on December 27, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

By Gina Cherelus

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It cost New York City about $24 million to provide security at Trump Tower, President Donald Trump’s skyscraper home in Manhattan, from Election Day to Inauguration Day, or $308,000 per day, New York’s police commissioner said on Wednesday.

The revelation prompted renewed calls for Congress to reimburse the city for the cost of protecting Trump’s private residence on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, where his wife and their son continue to reside.

“We are seeking full federal reimbursement for all costs incurred related to security for President Trump and his family at Trump Tower,” Freddi Goldstein, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, wrote in an email to Reuters.

New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said in a statement that the Police Department now has a dual role in protecting the first family while also serving and protecting residents in the city.

“Trump Tower itself now presents a target to those who wish to commit acts of terror against our country, further straining our limited counterterrorism resources,” O’Neill said.

Trump’s spokespeople could not be reached immediately for comment.

De Blasio asked the U.S. government in December for up to $35 million to cover security costs for protecting Trump in his home atop the 58-story skyscraper, which is located on Fifth Avenue near Central Park, an area popular with tourists.

At $24 million, the final cost was less than that. Trump spent most of his time from Election Day on Nov. 8 until his inauguration on Jan. 20 at his penthouse apartment in Trump Tower.

In addition to the police protection, the Fire Department incurred $1.7 million in costs during the time period Trump was in New York, according to O’Neill.

On days when first lady Melania Trump and the couple’s son, Barron, are the only ones in the city, security going forward will cost between $127,000 and $145,000 per day, less than when the president is in residence, O’Neill said.

When Trump is in town, the cost of police protection will go back up to $308,000 on average per day, O’Neill said. It will cost about another $4.5 million per year for the New York City Fire Department to protect the building, he said.

“We anticipate these costs will increase significantly whenever the president is in New York City,” he said.

Trump has not been back to Manhattan since his inauguration.

New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said in a statement on Wednesday that the city’s taxpayers should not be forced to pay for a “national security obligation” and that “Congress must provide city taxpayers a full reimbursement.”

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Sharon Bernstein and Leslie Adler)

French police clash with youths at protest rally, arrest eight

Clouds of tear gas surround youths as they face off with French police during a demonstration against police brutality after a young black man, 22-year-old youth worker named Theo, was severely injured during his arrest earlier this month, in Paris, France, February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

PARIS (Reuters) – Hundreds of French high-school students staged an unauthorized anti-police rally on Thursday, blocking the entrances to a dozen schools in Paris in the latest in a series of protests over the alleged rape of a young black man with a police baton.

Police reported eight arrests after isolated skirmishes with youths who hurled objects and damaged property on the fringes of what otherwise appeared to have been a relatively peaceful demonstration.

The protest comes two months before a presidential election where far-right leader Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant National Front party, is tipped to win the first round but lose the runoff vote that takes place on May 7.

The Paris school authority said more than 10 schools had been targeted by youths who piled up rubbish bins and other objects at the entrance gates. In one case, a deputy school director was injured when protesters hurled a fire extinguisher.

The protesters are angry over the alleged rape of the 22-year-old man during a Feb. 2 arrest in an area north of Paris where large numbers of immigrants live. The man, identified only as Theo, remains in hospital with injuries to his anus and head.

He has called for public calm and his family has said they have faith in the French justice system.

One of the banners carried at Thursday’s rally read “Revenge for Theo!”

Social media networks showed signs of skirmishes on the fringes of the rally in the Place de la Nation square in the east of Paris, where riot police in protective gear advanced on groups of mostly-hooded youths in sidestreet confrontations.

A helicopter flew overhead and tear gas clouds rose into the air above that square toward the end of the rally.

The Paris police department had warned people to stay away from the protest, saying it was not authorized and that there was a risk of violent groups causing trouble, as happened over the last three weeks.

Four police officers have been suspended pending an inquiry into the Feb. 2 incident. One has been placed under formal investigation for suspected rape and three others for unnecessary use of force.

So far the protests have not snowballed to the extent of the unrest that 12 years ago drew global attention to the stark contrast between wealthy Paris and the suburbs that surround it.

(Writing by Brian Love; additional reporting by Gerard Bon and Jean-Baptiste Vey; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Chicago police push for community assistance after deaths of three children

Chicago Police Department coordinator trying to bring community together

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Glen Brooks, a Chicago Police Department area coordinator, stood in front of a sometimes hostile crowd for the third time this week, calling on the community to help curb the city’s gun violence.

“There is an evil out here, if we do not organize and become powerful it will continue to spread,” he said Thursday night, speaking in the parking lot of an auto parts store on the city’s West Side.

“It will continue to take our young men and turn them into something no parent could ever imagine.”

In the wake of three fatal shootings of young children — aged 2, 11 and 12 — in recent days, the department held a series of interventions aimed at convincing those in violent neighborhoods to become more involved.

The police also want to overcome years of mistrust that has led to hostility with the city’s minority communities, which see the police as having used excessive force against its members for years.

Discriminatory policing practices in Chicago’s minority neighborhoods have “eroded CPD’s ability to effectively prevent crime,” a January report from the Department of Justice said. The rate of solved murders in Chicago regularly lags the national average.

Neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides, where the three children were shot this week, are impoverished and plagued by unemployment.

Last year, Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, had a surge in violence that sent murders to 762, the highest since 1996.

The children who died this week were three of the 74 people murdered so far this year, a decrease from 82 in the same period last year, according to police. The number of shootings has ticked up to 330 from 324 in the same period last year.

Police, and community activists, point to the arrest of Antwan Jones, 19, who turned himself in and was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Takiya Holmes, 11, as an example of how quickly cases can be closed if people are willing to work with law enforcement.

“We need the community to help us,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said after Jones’ arrest. “In this case, they stepped up.”

Police were assisted by community activist Andrew Holmes, who worked with other groups and spoke to Jones’ mother in an effort to convince him to turn himself in.

“They are not our enemy,” Holmes said of the police in an interview with Reuters.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Malaysia detains woman, seeking others in connection with North Korean murder

Kim Jong Nam arriving at Beijing Airport

By Ju-min Park and A. Ananthalakshmi

SEOUL/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysian police on Wednesday detained a woman holding Vietnam travel papers and are looking for a “few” other foreign suspects in connection with the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother, police said.

Lawmakers in South Korea had earlier cited their spy agency as saying it suspected two female North Korean agents had murdered Kim Jong Nam, and U.S. government sources also told Reuters they believed North Korean assassins were responsible.

The portly and gregarious Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, was assaulted on Monday morning in the departure hall of Kuala Lumpur International Airport and died on the way to hospital, Malaysian police said.

The woman detained at Kuala Lumpur airport was identified from CCTV footage at the airport and was alone when she was apprehended, police said in a statement.Media had earlier published a grainy CCTV-captured image of a young woman wearing a white shirt with the letters “LOL” on the front.

Documents she carried were in the name of Doan Thi Huong, showed a birth date of May 1998 and birthplace of Nam Dinh, Vietnam, police said.

“Police are looking for a few others, all foreigners,” Deputy Inspector-General Noor Rashid Ibrahim told Reuters, declining to give their nationalities or gender.

South Korean intelligence believes Kim Jong Nam was poisoned, the lawmakers in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, said.

The spy agency told them that the young and unpredictable North Korean leader had issued a “standing order” for his half-brother’s assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.

“The cause of death is strongly suspected to be a poisoning attack,” said South Korean lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, who was briefed by the spy agency.

Kim had been at the airport’s budget terminal to catch a flight to Macau on Monday when someone grabbed or held his face from behind, after which he felt dizzy and sought help at an information desk, Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat said.

According to South Korea’s spy agency, Kim Jong Nam had been living, under Beijing’s protection, with his second wife in the Chinese territory of Macau, the lawmakers said. One of them said Kim Jong Nam also had a wife and son in Beijing.

Kim had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the isolated state.

“If the murder of Kim Jong Nam was confirmed to be committed by the North Korean regime, that would clearly depict the brutality and inhumanity of the Kim Jong Un regime,” South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is also acting president, told a security meeting.

The meeting was called in response to Kim Jong Nam’s death, news of which first emerged late on Tuesday.

‘SENSE OF DANGER’

South Korea is acutely sensitive to any sign of instability in isolated North Korea, and is still technically in a state of war with its impoverished and nuclear-armed neighbor, which carried out its latest ballistic missile test on Sunday.

Malaysian police said Kim held a passport under the name Kim Chol, with a birth date that made him 46.

Kim Jong Nam was known to spend a significant amount of time outside North Korea, traveling in Macau and Hong Kong as well as mainland China, and has been caught in the past using forged travel documents.

His body was taken on Wednesday to a second hospital, where an autopsy was being performed. North Korean embassy officials had arrived at the hospital and were coordinating with authorities, police sources said.

There was no mention of Kim Jong Nam’s death in North Korean media.

In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman said China was aware of the reports and closely following developments.

Yoji Gomi, a Japanese journalist who wrote a 2012 book on Kim Jong Nam, said Kim’s media appearances, which increased around the time South Korean intelligence said he was targeted for assassination, may have been an attempt to protect himself.

“I now have the impression that even he may have had a sense of danger, so he began exposing himself in the media and stating his opinions to protect himself and counter North Korea,” Gomi told a talk show on Japan’s NTV.

North Korean agents have killed rivals abroad before.

South Korea’s spy agency said Kim Jong Nam wrote a letter to Kim Jong Un in 2012 asking that the lives of him and his family be spared, one of the lawmakers said.

“Kim Jong Un may have been worried about more and more North Korean elites turning against him after Thae Yong Ho defected to the South,” said Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on the North Korean leadership at Dongguk University in Seoul, referring to last year’s defection by North Korea’s deputy ambassador in London.

Numerous North Korean officials have been purged or killed since Kim Jong Un took power following his father’s death in 2011. Those include his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was considered the country’s second most-powerful person and was believed to have been close to Kim Jong Nam.

Jang was executed on Kim Jong Un’s orders in 2013.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park, Cynthia Kim, Hyunjoo Jin and Yun Hwan Chae in SEOUL, Joseph Sipalan, Praveen Menon and Emily Chow in KUALA LUMPUR, and Philip Wen in BEIJING; Writing by Tony Munroe and John Chalmers)