North Korea publicly executed two officials in early August for disobeying leader Kim Jong Un, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday. Former agriculture minister Hwang Min and Ri Yong Jin, a senior official at the education ministry, have been executed, the JoongAng Ilbo daily reported citing a source.

The report of the execution, however, could not be verified as South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea-related matters, has released no confirmation of the news.

According to JoongAng Ilbo daily, Hwang was killed because his policy proposals were seen as a challenge to Kim, Reuters reported. The South Korean newspaper also stated that Ro was caught nodding off during a meeting with Kim and was later accused of corruption and showing disrespect to the leader. The newspaper reported that the two men were executed by anti-aircraft gun at a military academy in Pyongyang.

North Korea has seen a series of high-level purges under the rule of the young leader, who took power in 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. However, several reports of purges and executions in the past have later proved inaccurate.

The report of the executions comes after Seoul said North Korea's deputy ambassador in London had defected and arrived in the South with his family.

While news about executions in Pyongyang rarely are made public, state media confirmed the news of the execution of Kim's uncle Jang Song Thaek, in 2012 for factionalism and crimes damaging to the economy of the reclusive country.

Last year, the South's spy agency also revealed that a former defense minister, Hyun Yong Chol, was executed for treason.</s>Two senior regime officers reported to have been killed for posing a threat to leader Kim Jong-un

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

North Korea’s purge of senior officials who are deemed a threat to Kim Jong-un’s leadership of the country has continued with the public executions of two senior officials, according to South Korean media, possibly to generate fear among members of the elite after recent high-level defections.



The conservative daily, the JoongAng Ilbo, reported on Tuesday that Hwang Min, a former agriculture minister, and Ri Yong-jin, a senior official at the education ministry, were executed by anti-aircraft gun at a military academy in Pyongyang earlier this month.

Hwang was reportedly killed for making policy proposals that were seen as a direct threat to Kim’s leadership. The report did not give details of the proposals. Ri was said to have been executed for falling asleep during a meeting chaired by Kim.

The newspaper’s front-page report, based on information from an unnamed source it claimed had “special knowledge” of the regime, has not been independently verified. No announcement has been made by the state’s official KCNA news agency.

The rumoured executions, though, would fit into a pattern of purges Kim has ordered against perceived enemies since he became leader in late 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.

The most influential official to have been executed was Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle and second-in-command. Jang, denounced as a “traitor for all ages”, was killed in December 2013 after being found guilty of treason and other crimes against the North Korean state.

In April last year, Hyon Yong-chol, a former defence chief, was executed after falling asleep during a military rally attended by Kim.

The JoongAng Ilbo speculated that the executions could herald a new round of purges, intended as a show of force by Kim in retaliation for recent defections, including that of Thae Yong-ho, deputy ambassador at the North Korean embassy in London.

The regime denounced Thae as “human scum ”, and claimed he had fled to South Korea to escape charges of misusing government funds, selling state secrets and committing child rape.



The JoongAng Ilbo said the defections had “rekindled talk of instability and disunity among the North Korean elite”.</s>Two senior North Korean officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun in early August on the orders of Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper has reported.

Ri Yong Jin, a senior official in the education ministry, was arrested for dozing off during a meeting with Kim and charged with corruption before being killed, the paper said.

Former Agriculture Minister Hwang Min was purged over a proposed project seen as a direct challenge to Kim’s leadership, it said.

If true, it would mark the first executions ordered by Kim from outside his party or the military, the paper said.

A spokesman at South Korea’s Unification Ministry said he couldn’t immediately confirm the JoongAng report.</s>Kim Jong-un ordered the execution of two high-ranking officials by anti-aircraft gun over fears that the dictator is preparing another purge against his people.

Ri Yong Jin, a senior official at the education ministry, was sentenced to death after he fell asleep in a meeting being addressed by Kim.

After accidentally dozing off, Ri was taken into custody and interrogated where security agents found evidence of his disloyalty and disrespect towards Kim.

According to South Korean newspaper Joongang Ilbo, Hwang Min, a former agriculture minister was also sentenced to death.

Hwang's crime, according to the South Korean media, was to have developed a number of ideas to improve agricultural production.

These ideas were seen by the regime as an attempt to undermine Kim.

Both men were executed by an anti-aircraft gun at a military academy in Pyongyang.

The North Korean regime is especially paranoid in recent weeks after a senior offiicial at the London embassy defected to South Korea along with his wife and children.

North Korea rarely announces purges or executions, although state media confirmed 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.

A former defence minister, Hyun Yong Chol, is also believed to have been executed last year for treason, according to the South's spy agency.

The JoongAng Ilbo said the two men were executed by anti-aircraft gun at a military academy in Pyongyang.</s>Kim Jong-un has executed a senior North Korean official by firing squad because he did not sit properly during a meeting.

Education minister Kim Yong-Jin, 63, was shot dead after his 'bad sitting posture' in parliament incurred the wrath of the North Korean dictator.

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 for education Kim Yong-Jin was executed,' South Korea's unification ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said.

'Kim Yong-Jin was denounced for his bad sitting posture when he was sitting below the rostrum,' he added, referring to North Korea's parliament.

Kim Jong-un was in the government meeting and was infuriated after Kim Yong-Jin sat in his chair 'with a bad attitude'.

Another South Korean official said 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.

'The trouble for Kim began after he was seen sitting with bad attitude during a meeting of the People's Supreme Assembly,' the official told South Korean newspaper JoongAng Daily.

'He was later accused of being anti-revolutionary following a probe and a firing squad execution was carried out in July,' he added.

Kim Yong-chol, another North Korean official, was sent an 'ideological re-education' farm for a month in June and July because of his 'overbearing attitude'.

Meanwhile Choe Hwi, vice director of North Korea's propaganda and agitation department, has been sent to a similar camp.

The new report corrects claims made in the South Korean media yesterday that two North Korean officials were executed by anti-aircraft gun.

It was earlier reported that Ri Yong Jin, a senior official at the education ministry, was sentenced to death after he fell asleep in a meeting being addressed by Kim Jong-un.

It was also falsely claimed that Hwang Min, an agriculture minister, was sentenced to death for undermining the North Korean leader for coming up with new farming ideas.

The North Korean regime is especially paranoid in recent weeks after a senior official at the London embassy defected to South Korea along with his wife and children.

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.

A former defence minister, Hyun Yong Chol, is also believed to have been executed last year for treason, according to the South's spy agency.</s>North Korean leader Kim Jong-un used an anti-aircraft gun to publicly execute a senior official who fell asleep during a meeting.

The maniac leader also used the gun to kill the country's agricultural minister Hwang Min - for challenging his power.

Anti-aircraft guns - as their name suggests - are normally surface-to-air missiles used to handle hostile action from fighter planes in the air.

Using them to kill an individual person would be the military equivalent of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut - for want of a better analogy.

Ri Yong-Jin, who worked at the education department, "dozed off during a meeting presided over by Kim", according to a report.

They revealed: "(Ri Yong-Jin) was arrested on site and intensively questioned by the state security ministry.

"He was executed after other charges, such as corruption, were found during the probe."
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The source said: "I understand (Hwang Min) was executed because policy proposals he had pushed for were seen as a direct challenge to the Kim Jong-Un leadership."

Both deaths are said to have happened inside the secretive communist state earlier this month "on a special order from Kim Jong-un" at a military academy in Pyongyang.

Jong-un became leader after the death of his father Kim Jong-II in 2011 - and has since used executions to keep his subordinates in check.
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There are no other independent reports of these executions - and North Korea rarely comments on its executions to confirm them.

South Korea's Unification Ministry - which looks after North Korea-related matters - is yet to comment.</s>North Korea has executed a vice premier for showing disrespect during a meeting presided over by leader Kim Jong Un, and banished two other officials for re-education, South Korea said Wednesday.

If confirmed, they would be the latest in a series of killings, purges and dismissals carried out since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.

North Korea is a closed, authoritarian country with a state-controlled press that often makes it difficult for outsiders, and even North Korean citizens, to know what’s happening in the government.

“Vice premier for education Kim Yong Jin was executed,” Seoul’s Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said at a regular briefing.

Kim was killed by a firing squad in July as “an anti-party, anti-revolutionary agitator,” added an official at the ministry, who declined to be named.

“Kim Yong Jin was denounced for his bad sitting posture when he was sitting below the rostrum” during a session of North Korea’s parliament, and then underwent a interrogation that revealed his other crimes, the official told reporters.

The mass-selling JoongAng Ilbo first reported Tuesday that top figures had been punished, but identified the education official by a different name.

“He incurred the wrath of Kim after he dozed off during a meeting presided over by Kim. He was arrested on site and intensively questioned by the state security ministry,” it quoted a source as saying.

The Unification Ministry said two other senior figures were forced to undergo re-education sessions.

One of them was Kim Yong Chol, a top official in charge of inter-Korean affairs and espionage activities against the South.

The 71-year-old Kim is a career military intelligence official who is believed to be the mastermind behind the North’s frequent cyberattacks against Seoul.

Kim is also 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.

Kim was banished to an agricultural farm in July for a month for his “arrogance” and “abuse of power,” the ministry official said.

Kim Yong Chol, who was subsequently reinstated this month, is likely to be tempted to prove his loyalty by committing provocative acts against the South, the official said.

“Therefore, we are keeping a close tab on the North,” he said.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency put the number of party officials executed during Kim Jong Un’s rule at over 100.

The most notorious case was that of Kim’s uncle and onetime No. 2 Jang Song Thaek, who was executed for charges including treason and corruption in December 2013.

In April 2015, it was reported that Kim had his Defense Minister, Hyon Yong Chol, summarily executed with an anti-aircraft gun.

Reports of the latest execution coincide with a series of high-profile defections from the North.

North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain has defected to the South with his family, the Unification Ministry said earlier this month.

Thae Yong Ho was driven by “disgust for the North Korean regime” and concerns for his family’s future, it said.

Twelve waitresses and their manager who had been working at a North Korea-themed restaurant in China also made headlines when they arrived in the South in April as the largest group defection for years.

About 10 North Korean diplomats made it to the South in the first half of this year alone, Yonhap said, quoting informed sources.</s>North Korea publicly executed two top officials earlier this month with anti-aircraft guns on the personal order of supreme leader Kim Jong Un, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday.

Citing an unidentified source with knowledge of the North, the JoongAng Ilbo daily named the victims as Hwang Min, a former agriculture minister, and Ri Yong Jin, a senior official with the Education Ministry.

According to the report, the executions were carried out on the “special order” of Kim himself.

The daily quoted the source as saying Hwang was executed over a policy proposal that represented a direct challenge to the Kim regime. The report did not elaborate on the proposal. Ri’s fate was reportedly sealed after he fell asleep during a meeting presided over by Kim. The report said he was arrested on site and later executed after a probe uncovered corruption and other malfeasance. Both were killed at a military academy in Pyongyang, the source said, adding that an anti-aircraft gun was used in the executions.

The report could not be independently verified. The North rarely publicly acknowledges executions or purges, and prior media reports of leading officials’ executions in the reclusive state have proven to be false.

In December 2013, however, Pyongyang publicly announced perhaps its most high-profile execution, that of Kim’s uncle and key adviser, Jang Song Thaek.

Kim’s former defense chief, Ri Yong Gil, was reported by the Yonhap news agency in February to have been executed, although his name was seen in May on a list of officials selected for senior posts at the Workers’ Party Congress that month.</s>Two senior North Korean officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun in early August on the orders of Kim Jong Un, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify.

Ri Yong Jin, a senior official in the education ministry -- possibly the minister -- was arrested for dozing off during a meeting with Kim and charged with corruption before being killed, the paper said. Former Agriculture Minister Hwang Min was purged over a proposed project seen as a direct challenge to Kim's leadership, it said.

If true, it would mark the first executions ordered by Kim from outside his party or the military, the paper said. A spokesman at South Korea's Unification Ministry said he couldn't immediately confirm the JoongAng report.

Kim has carried out a series of executions since taking power in 2011 after his father's death as he puts his mark on the leadership of the isolated nuclear-armed nation. The most high profile was the killing three years ago of his uncle and one-time deputy Jang Song Thaek. He had about 50 officials executed in 2014 on charges ranging from graft to watching South Korean soap operas.

"Kim is continuing to replace the old guard of his father's regime with loyalists," said Robert Kelly, a political science professor at South Korea's Pusan National University. "The charges are obviously trumped up, and this is how promotion or demotion often works in totalitarian states without legitimate venues for opposition."

Kim had his military chief Ri Yong Gil executed in February on charges including corruption, Yonhap News reported at the time. 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 defense minister Hyon Yong Chol for dozing off at a rally.

Still, reports of purges of senior North Korean officials are not uncommon and at times have proven to be unreliable.

Earlier this month, Seoul announced that a senior North Korean diplomat based in the U.K. had defected to South Korea. The man was among seven diplomats who have defected this year, according to JoongAng Ilbo.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Monday the defections signal a "serious fracture" within the North Korean regime and raise the prospects of fresh provocations as Kim seeks to maintain control. Her comments came as South Korea and the U.S. hold annual military drills that North Korea calls a prelude to an invasion.

Even so, Kelly at Pusan University said that the isolated state is probably more stable than many people think or want it to be.

"I don't think there has been a fracture," he said. "So long as China keeps the goodies flowing into Pyongyang, which is like a city-state in an ocean of deprivation, the elites won't turn on each other."</s>North Korea has executed a vice premier and banished two other top officials to rural areas for reeducation, South Korean officials said Wednesday.

If confirmed, they would be the latest in a series of killings, purges and dismissals carried out since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.

North Korea is a closed, authoritarian country with a state-controlled media that often makes it difficult for outsiders, and even North Korean citizens, to know what's happening in the government.

Rival South Korea, which runs several intelligence organizations mainly tasked with spying on North Korea, has a mixed record on reporting developments across the border. In May, a former North Korean military chief, who Seoul said had been executed, was found to be alive and holding several new senior-level posts.

Jeong Joon Hee, a spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry, told reporters Wednesday that Kim Yong Jin, a vice premier on education affairs in North Korea's cabinet, had been executed. Jeong gave no further details, including why and when his ministry believes Kim was executed and how it obtained the information.

But a South Korean official, speaking on condition of anonymity citing office rules, said Kim was executed by firing squad in July for unspecified antirevolutionary and factional acts. The official said Kim first faced an investigation because of the way he was seated during a June meeting attended by Kim Jong Un.

Little is known about Kim Yong Jin, who last was mentioned by North Korea's state news agency on June 15, when it reported he attended an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's taekwondo federation.

Kim Jong Un, who is believed to be in his early 30s, is revered at the center of an intense cult of personality, with state TV occasionally showing aging senior officials kowtowing and kneeling before him. Last year, South Korea's spy agency said Kim had his defense chief executed with an antiaircraft gun for complaining about him and sleeping during a meeting over which he had presided.

Jeong said Kim Yong Chol, a top ruling Workers' Party official in charge of anti-Seoul spy operations, also had been ordered to undertake "revolutionary reeducation," in a reference to the banishment at a rural collective farm or a coal mine. Jeong said another senior party official dealing with propaganda affairs, Choe Hwi, was still on a similar "revolutionary reeducation" program.

Seoul officials believe Kim Yong Chol, director of the party's United Front Department, orchestrated two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010, when he headed the North Korean army's intelligence agency. Kim disappeared from the 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 Youth Day.

Kim Yong Chol was banished at a rural farm for about one month between mid-July and mid-August because of high-handed attitudes and attempts to expand his United Front Department's authority too much, according to a South Korean official who spoke about Kim Yong Jin's execution. The official said Kim Yong Chol recently was reinstated.

The rival Koreas have shared the world's most heavily fortified border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and they bar ordinary citizens from exchanging phone calls, letters and emails without special permission.

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Two North Korean officials are reportedly publicly executed by Kim Jong-un after they allegedly disobeyed orders: former agriculture minister Hwang Min for unsuitable policies and Ri Yong Jin, a senior official at the education ministry, for sleeping at a meeting with Kim, disrespect for the leader and corruption. They were allegedly executed by anti-aircraft artillery fire.