North Korea’s defence minister has been executed publicly with an anti-aircraft gun for falling asleep during military meetings and answering back to leader Kim Jong-Un.
Hyon Yong-Chol, 66, who was named head of North Korea’s military in 2012, was killed in front of hundreds of bloodthirsty officials at a military camp in the capital Pyongyang on April 30.
It is not the first time a ZPU-4 anti-aircraft gun has been used for executions in North Korea, with recently released satellite images showing a number of unidentified people being killed using the brutal method at the same camp last October.
Hyon was apparently caught falling asleep during formal military events and is said to have also spoken back to Kim Jong-Un on several occasions.
Hong Hyun-ik, chief researcher at the Sejong Institute, a security think tank based in Seoul, told local broadcaster YTN that the anti-artillery gun used would have left the body utterly unrecognizable.
The execution was initially reported by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, although reports from North Korea are impossible to independently confirm. Outraged critics said the victims would have been ‘pulverised’ by the artillery fire, in what they described as the latest example of brutality employed by the dictator to suppress his own people.
Since taking power upon the death of his dictator father in late 2011, Kim Jong Un has orchestrated a series of purges in apparent efforts to bolster his grip on power. Experts on North Korea said there was no sign of instability in Pyongyang, but there could be if the purges continued.
Kim ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority. In all, around 70 officials have been executed since Kim took over after his father’s death in 2011. Analysts are split on whether the bloody power shifts indicate a young leader in firm control, or someone still struggling to establish himself…….
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