“Vice-premier for education Kim Yong-Jin was executed”, Seoul’s unification ministry spokesperson Jeong Joon-Hee said at a regular briefing.
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Meanwhile, the country’s influential head of the United Front Department charged with handling inter-Korean relations was made to undergo “revolutionary measures” and consequently banished to a rural area for re-education, the ministry said.
The report could be seen as “a new reign of terror” in North Korea sparked by a number of defections by senior officials, the newspaper said. The men’s alleged offenses: Ri fell asleep while in a meeting with Kim and was “arrested on site and intensively questioned”; corruption charges followed.
Since taking office in late 2011, North Korea’s leader has executed more than 100 government and military officials, including his once-powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek, as he seeks to consolidate his oppressive rule, according to a Seoul think tank.
It said some previous reports of executions and purges in the reclusive state have proven inaccurate.
North Korea has executed Kim Yong-Jin, its Vice Premier for Education, and rebuked two high-ranking officials.
One of them was Kim Yong-Chol, a top official in charge of inter-Korean affairs.
The North Korean dictator had education minister Kim Yong-Jin, 63, shot dead with an anti-aircraft gun for his “bad sitting posture” in parliament, an official told South Korean newspaper JoongAng Daily.
Is ruthless Kim Jong-un getting soft?
Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Un is continuing his purge campaign against senior-level officials from the leadership in Pyongyang. A former defence minister, Hyun Yong Chol, is also believed to have been executed a year ago for treason.
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The North Korean regime is especially paranoid in recent weeks after a senior offiicial at the London embassy defected to South Korea along with his wife and children. Most recently, Gen. Ri Yong Gil, who South Korea’s spy service said categorically had been executed earlier this year, appeared alive and well in May’s congress event in Pyongyang.
