A Vietnamese woman who was implicated in the killing of the estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over two years ago was released on Friday from a Malaysian prison and flew home to Vietnam.
Doan Thi Huong, 30, was set free from a women's prison in Kajang on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in the morning and, after deportation processing, headed to Kuala Lumpur International Airport in the evening.
After boarding her flight, she told reporters on the plane that she was grateful for all the support she received during her ordeal. "I want to say I love you all. Thank you my Lord Jesus," she said.
(Doan Thi Huong, right, gets ready to fly home)
Her lawyers, plus officials from the Vietnamese Embassy in Malaysia were on the same Vietnam Airline flight to Hanoi with Huong.
"The case has come to a complete end as far as Doan is concerned," Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, one of her lawyers, told reporters at the airport.
Her release capped a remarkable turn of events that began on Feb. 13, 2017, when Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's paternal half-brother, was killed at the airport.
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Security cameras at the departure terminal recorded Huong and 27-year old Siti Aisyah from Indonesia swiping his face with a substance that was later determined to be the toxic nerve agent VX.
Huong was arrested two days later followed by Aisyah the next day and both were charged with murder, which carries a mandatory death sentence.
Both claimed they were duped by North Korean agents into thinking they were taking part in a television prank show and were not aware of the lethality of the substance the North Koreans applied on their palms.
Prosecutors alleged that the women had a "common intention" with four North Koreans to murder Kim Jong Nam. The four men -- Ri Ji Hyon, Ri Jae Nam, Hong Song Hac and O Jong Gil -- fled Malaysia within hours of the incident and are believed to have returned to North Korea.
However, 17 months after the trial began in October 2017 at the Shah Alam High Court on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian attorney general unexpectedly withdrew the murder charge against Aisyah and she was freed in March following lobbying from Jakarta.
This prompted an outcry from Huong's legal team, who accused the attorney general of acting unfairly. The Vietnamese government stepped up its campaign with appeals to the Malaysian government and making representations to the attorney general on Huong's behalf.
On April 1, the prosecutor offered Huong a lesser charge of "causing hurt," which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years and four months in jail. The sentence ran from the date of her arrest on Feb. 15, 2017.
A one-third remission of her sentence for good behavior meant she was released Friday.
In a message she prepared in prison on the eve of her release that was read out by Hisyam at a press conference at the airport, Huong thanked a host of people, from the Malaysia and Vietnam governments, the prosecutor to the prisons department that she said took care of her "very well."
