Deputy PM: Malaysia to deport fifty N Koreans

This article is more than 12 months old

Mar 15, 2017 06:00 am

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will deport 50 North Koreans for overstaying their visas, the deputy prime minister said yesterday, in an apparent exception to a departure ban after the assassination of Mr Kim Jong Nam.

The killing of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month in Malaysia with VX nerve agent triggered an angry standoff between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang that has seen them expel each other's ambassador and refuse to let their citizens leave.

OVERSTAYING

But deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the 50 North Koreans working in the state of Sarawak on Borneo island - home to coal mines which often employ foreign workers - would be deported despite the ban.

"We will send the North Korean workers in Sarawak who have exceeded their (working) visa back to Pyongyang for overstaying," he said.

"They will be deported soon." - AFP