Kim Jong’s son spotted in Paris

Kim Jong-Nam was expelled from Japan for entering on fake passport

TOKYO: The eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has resurfaced in Paris, where he said he was visiting a dentist, Japanese television said on Tuesday. Kim Jong-Nam, who in 2001 was expelled from Japan for reportedly trying to enter the country on a forged Dominican Republic passport issued in the Chinese name of Pan Xiong.

He had last been seen living the high life in China’s casino haven of Macau. Japan’s Fuji Television showed footage from Paris of a stout man in a fashionable pin-striped suit whom it identified as the 36-year-old eldest son of the North Korean strongman.
   
The man comfortably dodged questions in impeccable French. “I just went to the dentist and I can’t talk much. I’m sorry,” he said. Asked about his French skills, he responded: “Everyone knows I studied in Europe.” The North Korean regime in the year 2000 began dropping hints that Jong-Nam might be groomed as the next leader to continue father-son succession in the world’s only communist family dynasty.

Japan’s top government spokesman, said that Tokyo was closely watching the succession in N.Korea. “We are highly interested in the succession issue and we are gathering information,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said.