Vietnamese Defendant in Kim Jong Nam Murder Leaves Malaysia after Release

The final defendant charged with murdering the half-brother of North Korea’s dictator in a chemical weapons attack at a Kuala Lumpur airport left prison and flew home to Vietnam on Friday evening, bringing to a close legal battles in the two-year-old case, her lawyer said.

Doan Thi Huong, a Vietnamese national who will turn 30 at the end of May, was released from Kajang prison near Kuala Lumpur on Friday morning, where she had been held since her arrest shortly after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam on Feb. 13, 2017.

“The case has come to an end,” defense attorney Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told journalists, adding that the prosecution had filed no appeals over the Shah Alam High Court’s decision last month to allow her to plead guilty to a lesser charge and serve out her sentence.

In a video taken by one of her lawyers on the plane just before it took off, Doan expressed thanks for all those who prayed for her, according to the Associated Press. “I want to say I love you all. I thank you my Lord Jesus. Thank you so much,” she said in the video.

Later, after arriving in Hanoi, Huong said she was not sure what she wanted to do next, “but I think I want to become an actor.” She also spoke about her time in custody, according to AP.

“What scared me the most when I was in prison was the loneliness and homesickness,” she said. “My condition in the prison was good. They did not treat me badly.”

Malaysian prosecutors and other government officials did not comment Friday on Doan’s release.