North Korea executed its vice premier for education in July for showing disrespect to leader Kim Jong Un during a meeting in Pyongyang, and banished two other officials to rural areas for re-education, South Korea said on Wednesday.
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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. Ri was said to have been executed for falling asleep during a meeting chaired by Kim. The state security ministry questioned Mr. Kim, rather intensely, which was then followed by execution. The newspaper claimed that the decision to execute the two was reached after several senior-level North Korean officials defected to South Korea.
According to the officials in Seoul, these are the latest executions and demotions of top North Korean officials since Kim Jong Un assumed power in 2011. There have also been reports of the Kim clan, which has ruled North Korea with an iron fist since 1945, using flame throwers and mortars to eliminate its opponents, although it is hard to confirm all such claims.
North Korea rarely announces purges or executions, although state media confirmed the 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.
Kim Yong-chol, who took the helm of the UFD after predecessor Kim Yang-gon was killed in a auto accident in December, was temporarily purged by being sent to a farm in the countryside to undergo ideological reeducation for a high-handed attitude at his job, the official said.
It is hard to independently verify news about top officials in the North or the inner circle around the leader. As said by the servicing official, the 63-year-vice head was blamed for being against progressive component and executed by a terminating squad a month ago.
Kim also served as a vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), and he used to be a director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau.
Kim, like his deceased father Kim Jong-Il, has executed officials who challenge his reign without compunction.
In April 2015, it was reported that defence minister Hyon Yong-Chol was summarily executed with an anti-aircraft gun.
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The executions may have also been carried out to scare North Korea’s high-ranking officials.
