The South Korean government said vice premier Kim Yong-jin was shot by firing squad for showing “disrespect” while leader Kim Jong-un presided over a session of the secretive regime’s parliament.
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It seems another senior official, Ri Yong-jin, of the Education Ministry, suffered the same fate after falling asleep.
According to the reports that said by the officials to media, “Kim Yong-Jin was criticized for his very bad sitting posture on the platform during an assembly of parliament of North Korea and then went through a questioning session that exposed others”. He was arrested on site and was intensively interogated by the state security ministry, then he revealed his other crimes as well.
Two other top North Korean officials were also disciplined in the past few months, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry, though both of them evaded execution.
Kim, who took power in 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong I, and his consolidation of power have included purges and executions of top officials.
Kim Jong-un has executed a senior North Korean official by firing squad because he did not sit properly during a meeting. South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reports by way of an unnamed source that two men were publicly executed earlier this month.
The ministry’s announcement comes a day after South Korea’s “JoongAng Ilbo” newspaper reported that Pyongyang had two officials, including former Agriculture Minister Hwang Min, executed by anti-aircraft gun at a military academy in the nation’s capital.
The executions may have also been carried out to scare North Korea’s high-ranking officials.
In February, Seoul said the North’s military chief of staff had been executed, but he later resurfaced at a party rally in May.
In the most high-profile case, Kim had Jang Song Thaek, his uncle and a powerful figure in the leadership, executed for charges including treason and corruption in December 2013.
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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.
