Kim Jong-un's playboy half brother enjoys spaghetti in Jakarta amid concerns of assassination attempt by North Koreans.
- Kim Jong-nam posed for photos with chef at Italian restaurant in Jakarta
- He has been moving around South East Asia amid assassination concerns
- Kim 'disappeared' after his uncle Jang Song-taek was executed last year
Published: 02:02 EST, 25 May 2014 | Updated: 02:03 EST, 25 May 2014
He has been moving from city to city in South East Asia keeping his eyes and ears open for any attempt by North Korean agents to assassinate him.
But Kim Jong-nam, the elder half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, has daringly stepped out into the public gaze in Indonesia - and tucked into a dish of 'spag-bol' in an Italian restaurant in Jakarta.
He even wrapped a burly arm around the chef's shoulders as they posed for a photo, but the chef was so concerned about his own safety that he asked for his face to be obscured.
Kim Jong-nam, the elder half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, poses for a photo with the chef of an Italian restaurant in Jakarta earlier this month
Kim looked every part the aging playboy he is reputed to be as he brazenly grinned into the camera with his dangling sunglasses and straw hat.
Happy to shake off memories of bibimbap - a common North Korean dish of rice, vegetables and occasionally eggs and meat - Kim is said to have consumed his Italian meal with great relish in the upmarket restaurant.
The photo was acquired by South Korea's YTN television network from a friend of Kim's.
‘Despite reports that Kim Jong-nam's safety was in question following the execution of his uncle, Jang Song-taek, he is still alive and well,' said a source close to the family.
'He's living the same lavish lifestyle, moving around between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and France.'
He has been seen in the casinos of Macau and slipping into fine-dining restaurants throughout South East Asia.
But he is said to be aware that his life remains in constant danger because he criticised the King Jong-un regime and he made sure he 'disappeared' following the execution of Jang last December.
Another source claims that a North Korean agent had tried to assassinate Kim Jong-nam in Macau in 2011, but failed after a bloody shootout with his bodyguards. He fled to another city.
Since then, he has lived the life of a wandering playboy and when he visited the Italian restaurant - which is owned by a Japanese businessman - he was accompanied by an attractive woman aged in her early 30s.
Kim Jong-Nam has been moving from city to city in South East Asia amid concerns of an assassination attempt by North Korean agents
Until late 2011, when his father - former leader Kim Jong-il, who is also Kim Jong-un's father by a different mother - was still alive, Jong-nam shuffled back and forth between Beijing and Macau, where his first and second wives lived.
He is also known to have travelled to Thailand, Austria and Russia, stopping in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, from time to time.
But following the death of his father he disappeared from view, fearing the purges being carried out by his younger half-brother.
He has been able to live well, say North Korea watchers, thanks to benefits from building projects and trading companies set up by his executed uncle Jang Song-taek.
'It is possible that he believes he is not on the list of those to be purged by the current North Korean regime,' a source said.
'This is why he has happily posed for a photo in an Indonesian restaurant. But he would not have gone back there a second time - just in case.'
In fact, it is believed he has moved on from Jakarta since the picture was taken earlier this month.
He is said to be still on his guard, worried that his playboy lifestyle might have infuriated his younger half-brother, who had been angered by the 'worldliness and womanising' of Kim Jang-taek.
There is speculation that Beijing is watching Kim Jong-nam's back for him, with a pencilled-in plan to install him as leader of North Korea should the regime of Kim Jong-un collapse.