South Korean officials say Pyongyang executed the vice premier of education by firing squad last month.
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Jeong declined to go into details over why the vice premier was executed or when or where it took place.
The North Korean government has been rocked by a series of high-profile defections, including Thae Yong Ho, the country’s deputy ambassador to the U.K. Thae’s wife is said to come from a family whose members fought as guerrillas against Japan’s occupation alongside Kim Il Sung.
If confirmed, the moves would suggest that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is resuming his campaign of killings and purges in what analysts have said is a bid to consolidate his hold on power amid fears of internal turmoil. When Seoul abruptly announced plans to completely suspend operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex on February 10, it also provided reporters with documents claiming that Ri Yong-gil, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, had been executed.
The mass-selling JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday said two senior officials had been put to death. It is impossible to know whether the government’s claims were verified by multiple reports or whether they were based on a single report.
Kim Yong Jin was executed for having a “bad attitude”, reports CNN.
Yong-jin – a vice premier responsible for education – apparently made the fatal error at a parliamentary meeting in June.
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.
Kim Yong-jin, North Korea’s vice premier for education and Hwang Min, a former bureaucrat in the agriculture ministry, were allegedly gunned down in July under dictator Kim’s tyrannical regime.
Kim Yong Chol, the head of North Korea’s United Front Department, received “revolutionary punishment” at a rural farm, or hard labor, between mid-July and mid-August.
Kim Jong-Un, believed to be his early 30s, is revered at the center of an intense cult of personality at home, with state TV showing aging senior officials kowtowing and kneeling down before him.
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.
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The 71-year-old Kim is a career military intelligence official who is believed to be the mastermind behind the North’s frequent cyber-attacks against Seoul.
