Kim Jong-un has executed 340 people in five years for ‘crimes’ including drinking and slouching
NORTH Korea’s leader has executed 340 people since seizing power in 2011 for “crimes” including slouching and napping.
NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has executed 340 people since coming to power in 2011, a shocking new report reveals.
Of those killed, nearly half were senior officers in his own government, military and the ruling Korean Worker’s Party, The Sun reports.
The brutal punishments were for “crimes” including having a “bad attitude”, treachery and slouching in a meeting.
The Institute for National Security Strategy, a South Korean think tank, released The misgoverning of Kim Jong-un’s five years in power on Thursday, detailing how he uses executions to tighten his grip on power.
RAND Corporation Senior Defence Analyst Bruce Bennett told CNN Kim had shown an “extreme” level of brutality and ruthlessness since 2011.
“In the five years he has served as leader of North Korea, he has purged (his) Defence Minister five times, while his father changed his only three times in his 17 years ... and two of those changes were because (they) died of old age,” he said.
News of Kim’s brutal executions have leaked out of the rogue state over the past five years.
Earlier this year, the country’s top schools official Kim Jong-in was executed by firing squad after he exercised a “bad attitude” at the country’s Supreme People’s Assembly in June.
In May 2015, Kim had defence minister Hyon Yong-Chol killed with an anti-aircraft gun at a military school in Pyongyang, in front of an audience.
“(It) would have torn his body apart,” Dr Bennett said. “And of course Kim made sure the Defence Minister’s family was there to see the execution.”
Two years earlier, in 2013, Kim’s own uncle Jang Song-Thaek was executed for trying to overthrow the government. It was reported at the time stripped naked and fed to a pack of hungry dogs.
Deputy Public Security Minister O Sang-hon — a known ally of the deceased Jang — was later burned to death by a flamethrower.
The execution was reportedly for following Jang’s instructions and turning their governmental department into a protection racket.
A vice minister of the army was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il’s death in December 2011.
Kim ordered “no trace of him left behind, down to his hair,” according to sources in Seoul, South Korea.
The despot also ordered the killing of Ri Yong-jin, a boss in the education ministry, after he made the fatal mistake of nodding off as the ‘glorious leader’ spoke
This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.