Kim Yong Jin, the vice premier for education, was interrogated after slouching during a meeting of parliament in late June presided over by Kim Jong Un, an official at South Korea’sUnification Ministry said.
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The official at Seouls unification ministry was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency that North Korea executed the 63-year-old Kim Yong-jin by firing squad last month.
The South Korean official said North Korea also recently sent two other senior officials for ideological re-education, including Kim Yong Chol, who has led Pyongyang’s main spy agency and was recently given a top position for inter-Korean relations.
Kim Jong Un, believed to be his early 30s, is revered at the center of an intense cult of personality, with state TV occasionally showing aging senior officials kowtowing and kneeling down before him. “Vice Premier Kim Yong-jin was executed and UFD director Kim Yong-chol was sent for revolutionary re-education. And Choe Hwi, a vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers’ Party is now undergoing such re-education”.
It rarely announces purges or executions and it is hard to independently verify news about top officials in the North or the inner circle around the leader.
Kim Jong-un uses an anti-aircraft gun to execute one high-ranking official for sleeping in a meeting and another for coming up with his own idea.
North Korea is a closed, authoritarian country with a state-controlled press that often makes it hard for outsiders, and even North Korean citizens, to know what is happening in the government. The letters read ” North Korea has executed Kim Yong Jin and banished Kim Yong Chol and Choe Hwi. In May, a former North Korean military chief, who Seoul said had been executed, was found to be alive and holding several new senior-level posts.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry has also alleged two other senior officials are being forced to undergo re-education sessions to bring them in line with the totalitarian state’s rigid policies. Kim Yong-chol was punished for his overbearing demeanour, the official added, but gave no details.
North Korea rarely announces purges or executions, although state media confirmed execution of Kim’s uncle and the man widely considered the second most powerful man in the country, Jang Song Thaek, in 2012 for factionalism and crimes damaging to the economy. The most recent was sacked from a submarine and flew more than 310 miles before landing in the Sea of Japan, officials said.
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In April past year, the country killed then-defense chief Hyon Yong-chol with an anti-aircraft gun because he dozed off during a military event, according to Seoul’s spy agency.
