Kim Jong Nam’s Facebook Page Offered a Glimpse Into His Life Outside North Korea

This article originally appeared on Motherboard.

Before Kim Jong Nam was assassinated on February 13 at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur airport, his personal Facebook account showed another side of his life—he had a profile photo of a cute squirrel. This squirrel, which was eating a nut, was covered in the French flag filter that came out on Facebook after the Parisian terrorist attacks in 2015. He commented of photos with phrases like "I miss Europe!"

Jong Nam, who was the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, might have been, among other things, tracked for his liberal opinions he expressed online and in the media. News broke last week that a deadly VX nerve agent killed him

Jong Nam was traveling on a passport with the name Kim Chol, the same pseudonym he had on his Facebook account, which has recently been deleted. Cha Du-hyeong, a former South Korean intelligence secretary told NK News Jong Nam wasn't trying to live a secret life, as he openly shared travel photos and selfies on his personal Facebook profile, and had been called careless for his Facebook likes: He had liked the page of a Jong Un impersonator named Kim Jong "Um," the official page of Vladimir Putin and the Girls Bar Kimidori in Singapore, which looks like the Asian version of Hooters.

He was easily identifiable on Facebook, as he listed his educational background, having studied  in Geneva and Moscow in the late 1970s. While there is no way to prove or disprove if this was actually his page or not, a source told NK News that Jong Nam had used the account frequently up until 2015.

Some reports claim that by posting his "playboy lifestyle" online was ripe bait for North Korean intelligence agents who wanted him dead. He was attacked previously in 2012, but survived and then wrote his brother in Pyongyang asking that he no longer be attacked. His Facebook account showed him staying at five-star hotels and traveling the world, posing before city skylines in Macau and Shanghai.

Some say his Facebook posts cost him his life, as it is speculated he was targeted by the regime for his plans on defecting, as a few days before his death, a newspaper in South Korea reported Kim Jong Nam unsuccessfully tried to defect to South Korea several years ago, which was a ripe reason for the regime to finish him. He also called the North Korean government "a joke to the outside world."

But to Michael Madden, a visiting scholar at the US Korea Institute in Washington, Jong Nam wasn't as careless with his online activity as some might think. "He was very cautious in using email," said Madden. "His use of Facebook under the alias Kim Chol was more to be able to keep contact with family and friends without other users realizing who he was and then slamming his inbox with messages, friend requests and the like."

Madden explains that Jong Nam was under surveillance from North Korean authorities long before the internet. "When he studied abroad, he was under close watch to avoid possible kidnapping attempts," he said. "This was a person who was used to being watched, but in his own internet usage, Jong Nam used secured computers and a variety of software to minimize surveillance."

Some experts say the way Jong Nam spoke out in the media was what put him at risk. "I don't think his Facebook page was a major factor," said Sokeel Park, director of research at a non-profit called Liberty in North Korea. "Statements to the media over the years that were awkward for the regime didn't help him, but I doubt that's what got him killed."

Yoji Gomi, a Japanese journalist and author of the book "Kim Jong Nam: My Father, Kim Jong Il and Me," spent hours interviewing Jong Nam, who reportedly embarrassed the regime when he tried to enter Japan with a fake passport in 2001 as he headed to Tokyo Disneyland. He lived abroad since then. "It has been some time since he was ousted from the power structure of the North Korean regime, but he is the only one who can criticize the regime as a member of the Kim family," Gomi told the  Japan Times Gomi told the Japan Times last week. "I was hoping that he would have brought unexpected changes."

Madden thinks Jong Nam's interviews with Gomi put his life in danger. "His correspondence with the Japanese journalist and what he said certainly irked some in North Korea, and when the details were published in the book, Jong Nam was quite angry and upbraided the journalist."

South Korean national intelligence service director Lee Byung-ho had said authorities in Pyongyang were trying to assassinate Jong Nam since 2011. He had been under the Chinese government's protection in Macau.

"There is evidence from several sources that he was being tracked at least a year before his demise," said Madden, nothing that his homes in Macau and Beijing were relatively to easy find and were monitored daily by local police.

"The Ministry of Public Security has increased the protection to round-the-clock vans and cars and plainclothes personnel watching the perimeter around his homes," as Jong Nam is outlived by his wife, a son and a daughter.