Malaysian police say they have formally identified Kim Jong Nam as the victim of a fatal nerve agent attack at Kuala Lumpur's airport.
Kim is the estranged half brother of North Korea's ruler.
Friday's announcement was a formality. Soon after the Feb. 13 attack, Malaysian Cabinet officials confirmed the victim was Kim.
The identification process touches on one of the flashpoints in a case that has broken once-warm ties between Malaysia and North Korea.
North Korea does not acknowledge the victim is Kim Jong Nam and has demanded custody of the body, but Malaysia has not handed it over.
National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar refused to say how police identified Kim. He said the "safety and security of witnesses" are at stake.
On Friday, Malaysia's Inspector-General of Police  spoke to reporters and confirmed the man murdered in Kuala Lumpur International Airport was indeed Kim Jong Nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "We have fulfilled the requirement of the laws on his identification," he said.

Malaysian authorities had been very cautious about calling the murdered man Kim Jong Nam in public, referring to him instead as "Kim Chol," the name on one of his passports. Although he did not say whether Malaysian authorities' request for a Kim family DNA sample had been granted or whether any such sample had been used in the identification, Khalid dismissed a report in the ''New Straits Times'' on Saturday claiming Kim had been identified by the pattern of moles on his face, saying "No.  Not True.  That is not enough for us."

Two women, Indonesian  and Vietnamese , were charged with Kim's murder.  Both women protest their innocence, claiming they thought they had been hired to spray passengers with harmless baby oil, but Malaysian police say Kim died of , which the United Nations classifies as a weapon of mass destruction.  North Korean authorities claim Kim died of a heart attack. Aisyah has been the subject of protests outside the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta.  Members of workers' and religious groups waved banners saying "Siti Aisyah is only a victim of political conspiracy interests" and "Save Siti Aisyah."

The murder and its investigation have driven up tensions between North Korea and Malaysia.  Both countries temporarily barred each other's citizens from leaving, though North Korea recently allowed two Malaysian employees of the United Nations  to leave North Korea.  Nine Malaysians were believed to still be on North Korean soil, embassy workers and their families.