North Korea executed its defence chief by putting him in front of an anti-aircraft gun at a firing range, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers, the latest in a series of high-level purges since Kim Jong-un took charge in Pyongyang.
Hyon Yong Chol, 66, who headed the isolated country’s military, was charged with treason, including disobeying Kim and falling asleep during an event at which North Korea’s young leader was present, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed in a closed-door meeting with the spy agency on Wednesday.
His execution was watched by hundreds of people, they said.
It was not clear how the NIS obtained the information and it is not possible to independently verify such reports from within secretive North Korea.
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, according to the NIS. In all, around 70 officials have been executed since Kim took over after his father’s death in 2011, Yonhap news agency cited the NIS as saying.
“North Korean internal politics is very volatile these days. Internally, there does not seem to be any respect for Kim Jong Un within the core and middle levels of the North Korean leadership,” said Michael Madden, an expert on the country’s leadership and contributor to the 38 North think tank.
He added: “There is no clear or present danger to Kim Jong Un’s leadership or regime stability, but if this continues to happen into next year, then we should seriously start to think about revising our scenarios on North Korea”.
Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea leadership expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, said the regime could “reach its limit” if Kim’s purges continued.
“But it’s still too early to tell,” said Koh.
The lawmakers said Hyon was executed at a firing range at the Kanggon Military Training Area, 22 kilometres north of Pyongyang.
The U.S.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea said last month that, according to satellite images, the range was likely used for an execution by ZPU-4 anti-aircraft guns in October. The target was just 30 metres away from the weapons, which have a range of 8,000 metres, it said.
