Kim killing: Vietnam suspect was country girl, say neighbours

She was arrested alongside an Indonesian woman, both accused of carrying out a fatal poison attack on the unsuspecting Kim ahead of his flight home to Macau.

The unlikely connection between a country girl from a poor rural backwater 150 kilometres outside Hanoi to a high-profile assassination, has added another layer of intrigue to a crime that has captivated with its echoes of Cold War-era conspiracy and spycraft.

Houng’s arrest has caused fevered interest inside Vietnam, despite attempts by security officials in the communist nation to control the information flow.

Her family recall a girl who broke the conservative coventions of Quan Phuong village with her dyed hair, edgy clothes and foreign boyfriends since she left aged 18 apparently to study.

“At first we doubted it was her when we saw the picture with the ‘LOL’ shirt,” stepmother Nguyen Thi Vy told AFP.

“But when someone bought a clearer picture here, we knew it was our Huong,” she said.

“If she committed the crime, she has to suffer, we can’t do anything… but I think she must have been set up by someone.”

Malaysia’s police chief has scotched suggestions Huong and the other female suspect were duped.

Yesterday he said CCTV footage showed they were “very aware” the substance they wiped on Kim’s face was toxic, adding the pair had practised.

But when she returned home during the Tet lunar new year festival in late January she gave no hint of being mixed up in serious criminality, locals said.

Neighbour Maria Nguyen described Huong as someone who stood out in the small village of dozens of homes encircled by paddy fields.

“She has always been very fashionable, with colorful hair,” she said. “Every Tet she would come back home with some different (foreign) man,” she added.

Vietnamese social media has filled gaps in Huong’s history with conjecture and rumours.

Unsubstantiated photographs are doing the rounds of a woman who looks similar to Huong auditioning for a television talent show.