Kim Han-sol was born in Pyongyang in 1995 and had an isolated upbringing in Mainland China and Macau. Kim Han-sol first came to public attention in 2011 when he was accepted by Li Po Chun United World College, a member of the UWC movement, to study in Hong Kong. Later, he was denied a student visa by the Hong Kong government. In late 2011, due to an admissions announcement by the United World Colleges’ (UWC) United World College in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina campus, it was discovered by the South Korean media that one of the newly admitted students to the college was Kim Han-sol, about whom very little had been previously known.

In October 2012, Kim Han-sol made his first ever televised interview (in English) with Finnish TV network Yle, making several comments about his desire for Korean reunification, and not disputing the interviewer’s disparaging characterizations of Kim Han-sol’s grandfather’s and uncle’s rule over North Korea.

In December 2013, Kim was in his first year of study at the Le Havre campus of France’s Sciences Po university. Following the execution of his grand uncle Jang Song-thaek in December 2013, he was placed under police protection. He completed his studies at Sciences Po in 2016.

Kim Han-sol’s father Kim Jong-nam died in Malaysia on 13 February 2017, after two women attacked him at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and rubbed his face with VX nerve agent, a lethal chemical weapon. On 7 March 2017 a video surfaced of Kim Han-sol that was by a group called the Cheollima Civil Defense, and though parts of it were censored, he stated that he was with his mother and sister and hoping that it would “get better soon.”

In October 2017, Chinese police arrested two North Korean agents in Beijing, on suspicion of plotting to harm Kim Han-sol, according to the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo. The two suspects were members of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, which is responsible for overseas espionage and part of a team of seven that was foiled by Chinese authorities. In April 2020, however, Bloomberg News journalists Kanga Kong and Jon Herskovitz reported that Kim Han-sol’s “whereabouts remain unknown” since the assassination.