Choe Hwi, the Worker’s Party senior official with the Propaganda and Agitation Department, was punished by Kim Jong Un and underwent “revolutionary re-education”, a South Korea official said, according to CNN.
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The ministry’s announcement Wednesday came as a correction to a report by the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday on executions of two top officials in Pyongyang, citing a North Korea source.
Ri “dozed off during a meeting presided over by Kim”, the source said.
Kim Yong-jin was promoted to vice premier in 2012 after serving as education minister, according to a South Korean government database on key officials of the North.
Kim Jong-un has executed a senior North Korean official by firing squad because he did not sit properly during a meeting.
Seoul officials believe Kim Yong Chol, director of the party’s United Front Department, orchestrated two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010, when he headed the North Korean army’s intelligence agency.
The spymaster, who was reinstated this month, is likely to be tempted to prove his loyalty by committing provocative acts against the South, the official said.
Seoul’s spy agency reported that a North Korean military chief had been executed in May, but later, the government learned he was alive, well and had been promoted.
The MoU also said Kim Yong Chol, and a director of the United Front Department in charge of the North- South relations, were now undergoing ideological education.
“Therefore, we are keeping close tabs on the North”, he said.
Due to the secretive nature of the North Korean regime such stories are hard to verify but numerous reports of similar gruesome executions have filtered out over the years.
It is hard to independently verify news about top officials in the North or the inner circle around the leader.
North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain has defected to the South with his family, the unification ministry said earlier this month.
Yong-jin would be the highest ranking official to have been executed since 2013, when Kim Jong Un executed his own uncle Jang Song-thaek, second highest in command next to Kim Jong Un, for allegedly trying to overthrow his government.
The South’s spy agency said a former Defence Minister, Hyun Chol, is also believed to have been executed past year for treason.
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North Korea executed the country’s vice premier of education, South Korea’s Unification Ministry announced on Wednesday.
