A TWISTED plot using biochemical warfare has been the closest anyone has come to assassinating Kim Jong-un.
North Korea accused US and South Korean agents of conspiring to take out the dictator with "radioactive toxins provided by the CIA".
It comes after CIA director Mike Pompeo secretly met the North Korean leader in Pyongyang, two months before Kim and Donald Trump’s notorious 2018 summit.
Kim greeted him with the line, “Mr. Director, I didn’t think you’d show up. I know you’ve been trying to kill me.”
Pompeo jokingly replied, “Mr. Chairman, I’m still trying to kill you.”
But it turns out that the North Korean dictator was not joking as a source close to the assassination plot told The Daily Beast that there was an active plan “to topple the Kim regime" in 2017.
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The master plan would have echoed Kim's assassination of his half-brother with nerve agent VX months earlier.
Doh Hee-youn, CEO of the Citizens Commission for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, led the work from Seoul, South Korea.
Doh would communicate with plot leader Kim Seong-il, based across the border in Russia, in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk.
“For two or three years, I had conversations,” with Kim Seong-il, whose “intent was to topple the Kim regime,” Doh told The Daily Beast.
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The insider revealed plotters planned to distribute USB sticks and memory cards to spread the word on the coup, announcing "the supreme leader" would be removed and assassinated.
He added that Seong-il was well aware of the possible dangers of his plot, telling Doh: "In revolution there are always sacrifices.
“We knew it could be dangerous. Someone had to risk what we were going to do.”
It is understood the plot advanced to the point at which a tight-knit circle was ready to kill Kim Jong-un.
One of them was believed to have been a senior official in the power elite ever since the rule of Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.
The plot—the closest anyone has come to snuffing North Korea’s dictator—collapsed in disaster after it was corroborated North Korean state media.
North Korea’s state-run Uriminzokkiri media also posted a 23-minute video online in May 2017 boasting that the plotters, including Kim Seong-il, had been rounded up.
The film, however, has never been previously reported by either South Korean or foreign media, The Daily Beast reports.
Uriminzokkiri did not name Kim Jong Un, instead referring to him as "the supreme leader" and citing "evidence that the CIA and NIS have plotted terrorism."
Doh claims that, in reality, the ringleader of the plot was a mysterious “high-profile man in Pyongyang".
Kim Seong-il is shown in the video seen by The Daily Beast, apparently tortured, confessing to organising a team tasked with "removing" Kim Jong Un from power.
Seong-il, who claims to be funded by the NIS, details a plot to assassinate the supreme leader with a biological toxin or polonium, the same radioactive substance that killed ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
A statement by the Korean Central News Agency, the regime's main propaganda mouthpiece, also claimed it foiled a US-backed attempt to depose of Kim in May 2017.
It said: “A group of heinous terrorists who infiltrated into our country on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency of the US and the South Korean puppet Intelligence Service with the purpose of carrying out a state-sponsored terrorism against our supreme headquarters using biological and chemical substance were caught and exposed.
“This palpably shows the true nature of the US as the main culprit behind terrorism.”
The ministry of state security claimed a North Korean known only as “Kim” was paid to carry out an attack with biochemical substances but was caught. The suspect's fate was not reported.
KCNA's statement goes on to accuse Washington of using the war on terror as a pretext for overthrowing hostile governments.
It described the United States as a “chameleon” that “changes its colours” so it can overthrow governments, particularly in the Middle East, where it used counter-terrorism and non-proliferation of weapons to justify wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
According to Uriminzokkiri, the NIS sent funds four times: first $20,000, then $10,000, and then two $50,000 tranches.
A year after the plot was foiled, Kim Jong-un welcomed Pompeo to Pyongyang to begin preparations for the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore in June 2018.
And five years later, in August this year, Pyongyang was rocked by a bomb attack, sources within the country revealed.
It comes after Kim Jong-un beefed up his security with a phalanx of briefcase-wielding bodyguards.
The explosion in the North Korean capital was disclosed to The Dong-a Ilbo, a newspaper in South Korea, by a source citing testimony from local residents.
The source said it happened within the past two months and that they could not rule out the possibility that it targeted a “high-ranking” regime figure.
And though the blast could have been accidental, or part of a heist, the report said Kim Jong-un was “feeling uneasy about his safety”.
It said he had imported new explosive detection equipment, and had added briefcase-wielding guards to his security team.
Michael Madden, a leading expert on the North Korean elite, said: “There has certainly been a tightening of security measures around Kim Jong-un.”
The briefcases were, he added, a defence against assassins.
He said: “These are known as ballistic bags or ballistic briefcases.
“They are made of carbon fibre. In addition to being bulletproof, they also protect against tasers and other electronic-based ordnance.
“If the spotters radio the guards about suspicious activity or if a shot is fired , they can raise the bags to protect Kim Jong-un.
“These bags also unfold – there is either velcro or a clasp which can be undone, which turns the bags into a kind of fabric shield.
“So if someone takes a shot at Kim they would open these bags, surround and then cover him until he can be tossed into a car.”
He noted that Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader’s father and predecessor, had equipped his guards with ballistic briefcases too.
In his case, however, they served a dual purpose – carrying medical equipment, including a portable defibrillator, for the ailing tyrant.
Mr Madden said: “This begs the question: do these briefcases contain similar measures for Kim Jong-un? Especially when we consider his immediate bodyguards are carrying them around.”
The analyst highlighted two occasions in April when Kim’s bodyguards carried the cases – a visit to the North Korean space agency, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Pyongyang.
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