Two other senior officials were also punished in the past few months, the Unification Ministry said, although they escaped execution.
Advertisement
The slouching vice premier was interrogated and found to be an “anti-revolutionary agitator” before his execution in July, a South Korean official said.
Vice Premier Kim Yong Jin was executed for not keeping his posture upright at a public event, a South Korean government official later told Reuters.
Earlier this month, Seoul announced that a senior North Korean diplomat based in the United Kingdom had defected to South Korea. Ri was arrested and questioned and was executed after offenses such as corruption were discovered, the source said, according to the JoongAng Ilbo.
North Korea has executed one of its vice premiers, according to South Korean officials.
The report has not been independently verified as of Tuesday; no announcement has been made by North Korea’s state KCNA news agency.
Hwang was allegedly executed for making proposals that would have circumvented Kim’s authority.
The MoU also said Kim Yong Chol, and a director of the United Front Department in charge of the North- South relations, were now undergoing ideological education.
The 71-year-old Kim Yong Chol is a career military intelligence official who is believed to be the mastermind behind the North’s frequent cyberattacks against Seoul.
Seoul’s spy agency reported that a North Korean military chief had been executed in May, but later, the government learned he was alive, well and had been promoted.
North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain sought refuge in the South with his family, the unification ministry said earlier this month.
In January last year he executed General Pyon In Son, head of operations in the army, for disagreeing with him; and in May of that year he purged his defence minister Hyon Yong Chol for dozing off at a rally.
Advertisement
It is not often for North Korea to publicly announce someone’s execution, although it was confirmed that the dictator’s uncle, along with Jang Song Thaek, the second-most powerful man in the state were indeed killed.
