The official said the North sent Kim Yong-chol, 71, the head of the United Front Department, to a rural farm for one month of re-education in mid-July as he showed a “heavy-handed” attitude and was blamed for abusing his power.
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The governement has also banished two other officials for re-education, various local media in South Korea reported Wednesday.
At a news briefing, spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry Jeong Joon-hee said that the South Korean government confirmed Yong-jin’s execution through several ways, though he didn’t explain how.
Mr Kim was killed by a firing squad in July as “an anti-party, anti-revolutionary agitator”, according to an official at the ministry who wished to remain anonymous.
Jeong also corroborated the report of the purge of Kim Yong Chol, who headed up North Korean spying operations on the South.
But several have occurred, including the 2013 execution of Kim’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who had been considered the country’s second-most powerful man.
It was reported that Ri Yong Jin, a senior official at the education ministry, was executed by anti-aircraft gun after he fell asleep in a meeting.
Kim was branded “anti-party and a counter-revolutionary member” by the country’s State Security Department, after he exercised a “bad attitude” during North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly in June, the official said.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency put the number of party officials executed during Kim Jong-un’s rule at over 100.
Kim Yong-chol, who took the helm of the UFD after predecessor Kim Yang-gon was killed in a vehicle accident in December, was temporarily purged by being sent to a farm in the countryside to undergo ideological reeducation for a high-handed attitude at his job, the official said. The official said Kim Yong Chol was recently reinstated.
Yong-jin – a vice premier responsible for education – apparently made the fatal error at a parliamentary meeting in June.
The rival Koreas have shared the world’s most heavily fortified border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and they bar ordinary citizens from exchanging phone calls, letters and emails without special permission.
The killings are the start of a “new reign of terror” in the aftermath of a series of recent high-profile defections, the reports suggested.
A South Korean official said: “Kim Yong-jin was denounced for his bad sitting posture when he was sitting below the rostrum”.
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In April a year ago, Hyon Yong-chol, a former Defence Chief, was executed after falling asleep during a military rally attended by Kim.
