Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un executed his defence chief for sleeping during a meeting and talking back to the young leader, South Korea’s spy agency on Wednesday said, citing what it called credible information.
National Intelligence Service officials told a closed-door parliamentary committee meeting that People’s Armed Forces Minister Hyon Yong Chol was killed by anti-aircraft gunfire with hundreds watching at a shooting range at Pyongyang’s Kang Kon Military Academy in late April, according to lawmaker Shin Kyoung-ministry Shin attended the briefing.
The office of another lawmaker, Lee Cheol Woo, released similar information about the NIS briefing. The NIS did not tell lawmakers how it got the information, only that it was from a variety of channels and that it believed it to be true, Shin said.
The agency, however, did not comment when contacted. South Korea’s spy agency has a spotty record of tracking developments in North Korea.
Information about the secretive, authoritarian state is often impossible to confirm. Since taking power upon the death of his dictator father in late 2011, Kim has orchestrated a series of purges in efforts to bolster his grip on power.
