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.
Advertisement
Kim Yong Jin, a vice premier on education affairs in North Korea’s cabinet, was reportedly executed over the way he was seated during a meeting, South Korean officials claim.
Kim, 71, was a career military intelligence official who was believed to be the leader behind North Korea’s cyberattacks on Seoul.
Reports of the latest execution coincide with a series of high-profile defections from the North.
Kim Yong Jin was executed for not keeping his posture upright at a public event, a South Korean government official told Reuters. Kim Yong-chol was punished for his overbearing demeanour, the official added, but gave no details.
Late last month, Yonhap cited sources “familiar with the matter” as saying that North Korea publicly executed six officials deemed responsible for the escape of overseas workers to South Korea earlier this year.
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. The unnamed official also said Kim was executed by firing squad.
“Two other senior officials were sent for ‘revolutionary re-education” for a month, Seoul says.
According to the reports that said by the officials to media, “Kim Yong-Jin was criticized for his bad sitting posture on the platform during an assembly of parliament of North Korea and then went through a questioning session that exposed others”.
Jeong said that Kim Yong Chol, the influential Head of the North’s United Front Department, which handles inter-Korean relations, was made to undergo “revolutionary measures”.
Another Official said that the education official’s poor posture was spotted at a meeting on June 29, when Kim Jong-un was named chairman of a new national defence department.
He was blamed by the South for the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010 near the disputed sea border with the North in the Yellow Sea.
In April previous 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.
Advertisement
The last confirmed execution in the country was of Kim Jong-un’s own uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in December 2013.
