Seoul: North Korea executes top education premier

North Korea has allegedly executed a top official for being disrespectful during a meeting with Kim Jong-un in June. A South Korean official has said Kim Yong-jin, the vice premier for education, was executed by firing squad.

On Wednesday, Seoul’s Unification Ministry announced that the reclusive nation executed Kim, who was in charge of education, and banished two other officials for re-education: Kim Yong-chol, the head of the United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party, and Choe Hui-do, deputy chief of Propaganda and Agitation Department.

No other details were provided, including when the executed was held or how Seoul obtained the information.

The ministry’s statement came a day after an unconfirmed report in a South Korean newspaper that said two top officials had been executed. The names in the report were different from those released by the ministry, though.

Another official told CNN that the executed premier was branded “anti-party and a counter-revolutionary member” by North Korea’s State Security Department. Kim apparently exercised “bad attitude” during the Supreme People’s Assembly in the country in June. The unnamed official also said Kim was executed by firing squad.

There has been no confirmation from North Korea, which rarely gives updates about its state affairs. The last confirmed execution in the country was of Kim Jong-un’s own uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in December 2013.

State news agency KCNA had announced that Jang admitted to attempting to overthrow the government and was therefore executed. Jang apparently had mentored his nephew when the country’s supreme leader inherited the position from his late father, Kim Jong-il in 2011.

Jang, called a “traitor” and “worse than a dog” by the state agency, was married to Kim Jong-il’s sister and was vice-chairman of the country’s military organisation National Defence Commission. He was believed to have been the second most powerful man in the country, next only to Jong-un.