The sensational assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother in Kuala Lumpur airport two weeks ago is incomprehensible to most civilised people.
To begin to understand this apparent act of fratricide one needs to recognise that North Korea is essentially a medieval absolute monarchy ruled by an insecure tyrannical 33-year-old.
For all its modern twists — the use of VX nerve agent, the suspected assassins’ professed belief they were part of a reality TV show, the “LOL” (“laugh out loud”) acronym across a T-shirt worn by one of the accused women — this was murder in the mode of a Plantagenet or Ottoman Sultan.