The South Korean government said vice premier Kim Yong-jin was shot by firing squad for showing “disrespect” while leader Kim Jong-un presided over a session of the secretive regime’s parliament.
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Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman for Seoul’s Unification Ministry, told reporters Wednesday that Kim Yong Jin, a vice premier in North Korea’s Cabinet, had been executed.
An official from the ministry has claimed that Kim Jong-jin was killed under the orders of North Korea’s leader for being an “anti-party, anti-revolutionary agitator”.
“Two other senior officials were sent for ‘revolutionary re-education” for a month, Seoul says.
According to the South-Korean Officials, Kim Jong-un was in the government meeting and was infuriated after Kim Yong-Jin sat in his chair “with a bad attitude”.
On 29 December 2011, after the period of national mourning decreed after his father’s death, Kim Jong-Un was officially proclaimed “supreme leader of the party, state and army”.
Pyongyang has rarely confirmed the execution of its officials, although state media reported on the death of Kim’s uncle.
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.
Choe Hwi, vice director of North Korea’s propaganda and agitation department, is also believed to have been sent to a similar camp.
The ministry’s announcement Wednesday came as a correction to a report by the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday on executions of two top officials in Pyongyang, citing a North Korea source. “He was arrested on site and intensively questioned by the state security ministry”, it quoted a source as saying. 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 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.
The reclusive regime suffered an embarrassing blow earlier this month when North Korea’s deputy ambassador in London defected with his family to the South, the latest in a string of defections.
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In 2015, an anti-aircraft gun was allegedly used to execute defense minister Hyon Yong-chol, who had been accused of treason, according to CNN.
