SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s spy agency says it has information that North Korea executed its defense chief for sleeping during a meeting and talking back to young leader Kim Jong Un.
Lawmaker Shin Kyoung-min says the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary committee Wednesday that People’s Armed Forces Minister Hyon Yong Chol was executed in Pyongyang in late April.
The intelligence service told lawmakers that Hyon was killed by an anti-aircraft gun.
NIS didn’t tell lawmakers how it got the information and wouldn’t comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
Kim Jong Un has orchestrated a series of purges since taking power in late 2011.
South Korea’s spy agency has a spotty record of tracking developments in North Korea. Information said about the secretive, authoritarian state is often impossible to confirm.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
