PETALING JAYA: Siti Aishah, one of two women arrested in connection with the death of Kim Jong-nam, is a divorcee with a young son.
The 25-year-old Indonesian woman, according to Indonesian media reports, is also alleged to have two different identities.
While Malaysian authorities identified her as Siti Aishah, 25 from Serang, Indonesian media site Kumparan reported that based on identification records at her village in Angke, Jakarta West, she had two separate entries, complete with different photos.
The first entry, said the report, identified her as “Siti Aisyah”, who was born in Serang, Indonesia, on Feb 11, 1992. Accompanied is a mugshot of her with her hair in a ponytail.
However in the second entry, her name is spelt as “Siti Aisah” and her date of birth is listed as Nov 1, 1989. The picture shows her with her hair down.
The portal also reported that the identification numbers as well as her occupation on both entries were different. “Siti Aisyah” was listed as an entrepreneur; while “Siti Aisah” was a housewife.
Angke village head Dwi Ariyono was quoted in the report as saying that he did not know why Siti Aishah had two separate IDs.
Detik.com had also reported the woman as being divorced.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry officials were also informed by her ex-mother-in-law, Lian Kiong or Akiong, 56 today that she and her family had no relationship with Siti since she divorced her son, Gunawan Hasyim.
The ministry was also given a sealed handwritten letter dated Feb 1, 2012 which was signed by her former mother-in-law as an evidence that the couple had opted to divorce as they no longer “possessed the compatibility and harmony of husband and wife.”
Akiong also said that following the separation, Siti Aishah hardly visited her in-laws in Tambora in West Jakarta, and only came by once a year to meet her seven-year-old son Rio.
“After the divorce, she never came around. The last time she came was on Jan 28. She came and stayed for the night. She spent the night with my grandson and left the next day,” Detik.com quoted Akiong as saying.
According to Kumparan’s reports Siti Aishah’s alleged involvement in Jong-nam’s murder started when she was approached by a mysterious man at the nightclub where she worked at in Kuala Lumpur. The man had purportedly offered her US$100 (RM445) to carry out the act, which she had initially believed to be a prank.
She was said to have accepted the deal because she needed the money, despite not knowing who Jong-nam or her other accomplices were.
She previously worked as a domestic helper in Jakarta before moving to Malaysia in 2013 with her then-husband.
She was arrested by Malaysian police at 2am on Thursday after being identified based on CCTV footage from KL International Airport 2 (KLIA 2).
Jong-nam, 45, was supposedly killed by two women who had wiped a chemical-laced cloth on his face at the KLIA2 departure hall at about 9am on Monday.
He was about to leave for Macau. He died en route to the Putrajaya Hospital.