North Korea: North Korea has executed the head of its military on charges of treason, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency.
The sentence was carried out on Hyon Yong-chol at a military training facility on April 30, according to Yonhap News, with the firing squad using anti-aircraft weapons.
Mr Hyon was reportedly seen nodding off at a military event and failed to carry out the orders of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, the National Intelligence Service said in a report to South Korean government.
There are also suggestions that Mr Hyon, who was only appointed minister of the People’s Armed Forces less than one year ago, publicly disagreed with the young dictator.
Mr Hyon’s execution coincides with unconfirmed reports of unrest in Pyongyang, which may have been behind Mr Kim’s decision to cancel a plan to travel to Moscow recently for Russia’s celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University and an authority on North Korean affairs, said: “The only time they would reserve a punishment as dramatic as this is for an attempted coup.
“This is a clear message and a demonstration – to the public, but more importantly to the military – of the anger of Mr Kim and just what he will do to anyone who shows disloyalty to his regime.
“He is underlining his rule through terror”.
Other ministers who have failed in their policies have been removed from office and demoted, but such a “vicious” execution is designed to instill fear in Mr Kim’s powers, Profesor Shigemura added.
“Mr Kim cancelled his plans to go to Moscow very late and it is very possible that he learned of an attempt to overthrow him by the military while he was out of the country”, he said.
“But this just underlines the instability of his regime and the deep unrest that goes all the way to the top of the North Korean military”.
The South Korean spy agency told parliament that Ma Won Chun, known as North Korea’s chief architect of new infrastructure under Kim, was also purged, local media reported
15 officials executed this year on Kim Jong-un’s orders
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year, including several who complained about the young leader’s policies, South Korea’s intelligence agency said on Wednesday.
Those executed included two vice minister-level officials, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing legislators who attended a briefing by the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Both were punished for opposing or complaining about Mr Kim’s directives, the legislators said, adding a vice forestry minister was executed for complaining about Mr Kim’s forestation plan.
As well as the 15 senior officials, the NIS said four members of North Korea’s Unhasu Orchestra, with which Mr Kim’s wife, Ri Sol-Ju, had once been a singer, were executed in March.
The NIS said they were executed by firing squad on charges of spying.
In 2013, Japanese and South Korean media reported that a number of members of the orchestra had been executed for violating pornography laws in a bid by Mr Kim to protect his wife’s reputation.
The Kim dynasty has ruled reclusive and impoverished North Korea for more than six decades with an iron fist and a pervasive personality cult.
The NIS suggested Kim Jong-un was following the well-trodden path of his father and grandfather in using regular purges and executions to ensure discipline and loyalty.
Mr Kim had his uncle and one-time political mentor Jang Song-Thaek executed in late 2013 on an array of charges, including treason and corruption.
Jang had played a key role in cementing the leadership of the inexperienced Mr Kim, who took over after the death of his father and long-time ruler Kim Jong-il in December 2011.
But analysts said Jang’s growing political power and intervention in lucrative trade deals was resented by his young nephew.
The NIS said Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, who has risen swiftly through the leadership ranks, appeared to have married her college classmate and was expecting a baby next month.
Analysts say Kim Yo-jong, who once studied with her brother in Switzerland, wields increasing influence as the head of a propaganda unit in charge of her brother’s official visits.
She has regularly accompanied her brother on his “field guidance” trips since she was named as part of the powerful National Defence Commission in 2013 and granted a senior party title late last year.
The execution comes after South Korea’s spy agency said late last month that Mr Kim ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority.
