KUALA LUMPUR: The media in the United Kingdom went to town with images of the front page of yesterday’s New Straits Times.
The focus of the attention was on both the story and pictures of four men, believed to be North Korean agents, sought in connection with the assassination of Kim Jong-nam and, especially, the exclusive picture of the outcast half-brother of Kim Jong-un slumped in a chair.
The picture showed Jong-nam at a klia2 clinic, dizzy from the poison that had been administered to him by two women, prior to his death en route to Putrajaya Hospital.
The Daily Mail included the picture of NST’s front page in a story headlined: “Slumped in an airport chair and minutes from death: Shocking photos show North Korean dictator’s half-brother after he was poisoned as reports say he was plotting exile government”.
It included an update on the arrest of a North Korean in connection with the case yesterday.
Daily Mail’s online report also carried a photo of a journalist stationed outside the Kuala Lumpur Hospital mortuary reading the NST.
The International Business Times (IBT) UK, Mirror and The Sun also wrote about the image on NST’s front page, as did Sky News, an international multimedia news company based in the UK, on its website.
IBT’s headline read: “Shocking image shows Kim Jong-nam’s final moments after he was assassinated” and included a sub-heading that said images of the four North Korean suspects had been released.
Mirror and The Sun ran headlines with the words “shocking image”, while Sky News took a safer route, using only the word “image” and saying it showed Jong-nam “alive after attack”.
The Sun posted part of NST’s video entitled “Kim Jong-nam: Anatomy of an assassination”.
Voice of America senior diplomatic correspondent Steve Herman retweeted NST Online’s image of the front page, which went viral yesterday.