By Todd Crowell

TOKYO

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, who was killed in Malaysia on Monday, thought of himself as a reformer and an idealist, according to the only foreign journalist to interview him.

Yoji Gomi, a journalist for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper and author of a collection of interviews with Kim Jong-nam, told a news conference on Friday the Korean had hoped to become an agent of change in the homeland he scarcely visited.

A chance meeting between Gomi and Kim Jong-nam at Beijing airport in 2004 led to a series of interviews and communications that lasted until late 2012, when Kim Jong-il died and was succeeded as supreme leader by his younger son, Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong-nam spent most of his youth in Europe, Gomi said, but when he was around 20 years old he was given a tour of North Korea -- virtually the only time he had spent in his country.

What he saw compared very unfavorably with what he knew in Europe and he became vocal, through his dealings with Gomi and others, about the need to reform North Korea’s economy and even introduce democracy.

Holding such views probably is the reason why he was not chosen to succeed his father Kim Jong-il, Gomi told journalists at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Tokyo.

In Japan, Kim Jong-nam is best remembered for being arrested at an airport in 2001 after trying to enter the country with a fake passport. He claimed he simply wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Although the incident was very embarrassing for Pyongyang, Gomi said he did not believe that Kim Jong-nam was dropped from consideration as a successor to his father for that incident alone.

He had also gained a reputation as a womanizer and gambler, spending hours in casinos in Macau, where he had made his home. However, despite the playboy lifestyle, Gomi said Kim Jong-nam came across as intelligent and sober.

Gomi lost contact with Kim Jong-nam soon after his half-brother took power in late 2012.

The Japanese journalist did not try to speculate on who might be behind Kim Jong-nam’s killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport or if it was tied to North Korea. The two female suspects in the attack were carrying travel documents from Indonesia and Vietnam.

Gomi said he did not get the impression that Kim Jong-nam was particularly worried about his safety and frequently traveled abroad alone. He reportedly was not accompanied by a odyguard with him when he was killed.