North Korea’s state-run television KRT shows its leader Kim Jong Un purportedly watching a submarine-launched ballistic missile being fired.
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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’s happening in the government.
Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry, said at a news briefing that the government had used various means to confirm the execution of Kim Yong Jin, the deputy premier, and the purge of Kim Yong Chol, the head of the United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party, which handles relations with, as well as spying operations against, South Korea.
North Korea has executed its vice-premier for education as well as rebuked two high-ranking officials, South Korea said yesterday. In May 2015, North Korea’s defense minister, Hyon Yong-chol, was assassinated by airstrike after being accused of treason.
Jeong provided no further details, including when the reported punishments were believed to have taken place or how South Korea had learned of them. He was executed by firing squad in July, the agency said. Kim disappeared from public eye for about 50 days before the North’s state media on Sunday mentioned his name in a list of officials who attended ceremonies marking the Youth Day.
Two other high ranking North Korean officials were disciplined through “reeducation programs”, which usually implies a trip to a labor camp, the report said.
Two other senior officials were also punished for “lapses”.
The execution clams come as South Korea’s spy agency said Kim had his defence chief executed with an anti-aircraft gun for complaining about him and sleeping during a meeting he had presided over.
It seems another senior official, Ri Yong-jin, of the Education Ministry, suffered the same fate after falling asleep.
The ministry said that the government will newly allocate money to projects aimed at improving North Korea’s grave human rights abuses as the relevant law will go into effect this month.
The 71-year-old Kim is a career military intelligence official who is believed to be the mastermind behind the North’s frequent cyberattacks on Seoul.
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The official said Kim Yong Chol was recently reinstated. Dateline gets an insight.
