North Korea has executed a vice premier and banished two other senior officials to rural areas for "re-education", according to South Korean officials.
If confirmed, they would be the latest in a series of killings, purges and dismissals carried out since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.
Jeong Joon Hee, a spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry, told reporters that Kim Yong Jin, a vice premier on education affairs in North Korea's cabinet, had been executed.
He gave no further details, including why and when his ministry believes the minister was executed and how it obtained the information, but a South Korean source said the vice premier was executed by firing squad in July for unspecified anti-revolutionary and factional acts.
The official said the minister first faced an investigation because of the way he was seated during a June meeting attended by Kim Jong Un.
North Korea is a closed, authoritarian country with a state-controlled press that often makes it difficult for outsiders, and even North Korean citizens, to know what is happening in the government.
Rival South Korea, which runs several intelligence organisations mainly tasked with spying on North Korea, has a mixed record on reporting developments across the border. In May, a former North Korean military chief, who Seoul said had been executed, was found to be alive and holding several new senior-level posts.
Little is known about Kim Yong Jin, who was last mentioned by North Korea's state news agency on June 15, when it reported he attended an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's taekwondo federation.
Kim Jong Un, believed to be his early 30s, is revered at the centre of an intense cult of personality, with state TV occasionally showing ageing senior officials kneeling before him. Last year, South Korea's spy agency said Kim had his defence chief executed with an anti-aircraft gun for complaining about him and sleeping during a meeting he had presided over.
Mr Jeong said Kim Yong Chol, a senior ruling Workers' Party official in charge of anti-Seoul spy operations, had been ordered to undertake "revolutionary re-education", in a reference to the banishment at a rural collective farm or a coal mine. Mr Jeong said another senior party official dealing with propaganda affairs, Choe Hwi, was still on a similar programme.
Seoul officials believe Kim Yong Chol, director of the party's United Front Department, orchestrated two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010, when he headed the North Korean army's intelligence agency. He disappeared from the public eye for about 50 days before the North's state media on Sunday mentioned his name in a list of officials who attended ceremonies marking Youth Day.
Kim Yong Chol was banished to a rural farm for about one month between mid-July and mid-August because of alleged high-handed attitudes and attempts to expand his United Front Department's authority too much, according to the South Korean official who spoke about Kim Yong Jin's execution. The official said Kim Yong Chol had recently been reinstated.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here