NK leader’s uncle executed after trial for treason
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North Korea said yesterday it had executed the uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, branding the once-powerful Jang Song Thaek a “traitor for all ages.”
In a stunning downfall, Jang — who had been seen as Kim’s political regent and the country’s unofficial No. 2 — was executed on Thursday immediately after a special military trial, state news agency KCNA reported.
Jang committed such a “hideous crime as attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state,” the report said, while also making the rare admission that North Korea is experiencing economic strife.
Jang, 67, played a key role in cementing the leadership of the inexperienced Kim when he succeeded his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, but analysts said his power and influence had become increasingly resented.
The Kim family has ruled North Korea for six decades with an iron fist. But the nation has not seen such a high-level execution for decades.
The government accused Jang of betraying the trust of both Kim Jong Un, who is aged around 30, and his father, saying he had received “deeper trust” from the younger leader in particular.
The KCNA report portrayed Jang as decadent and corrupt, attempting to dominate national affairs by “stretching his tentacles” into ministries and institutions, and responsible for the failings of the hungry and impoverished nation.
Jang was also accused of slighting the young leader by not applauding him loudly enough at party meetings and blocking the construction of a mosaic in his honour at a tile factory.
Deriding Jang as “despicable human scum worse than a dog,” the KCNA report said he had attempted to stand in the way of Kim Jong Un’s succession and then targeted him with a planned coup.
“The accused is a traitor to the nation for all ages who perpetrated anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of our party and state and the socialist system,” it said.
North Korea confirmed earlier that Jang, who was married to Kim Jong Il’s sister, had been stripped of all posts, and branded him a drug-using womanizer who had squandered millions in state funds at foreign casinos.
During the court hearing on Thursday, Jang reportedly confessed he attempted to stage a coup by mobilizing his associates in the military.
“I was going to stage the coup by using army officers who had close ties with me or by mobilizing armed forces under the control of my confidants,” KCNA quoted him as saying.
“I attempted to trigger off discontent among service personnel and people when the present regime does not take any measure despite the fact that the economy of the country and people’s living are driven into catastrophe,” he said.
What Jang’s execution means for his wife was unclear. Kim Kyong Hui plays a key role in a leadership structure that stakes its claim to legitimacy on blood relations to her father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.
The Jangs, who met at university and married in 1972, have no surviving children. Their only child, a daughter, killed herself in 2006 aged 29 while studying in Paris, according to South Korean media.
Jang’s execution also calls the careers of his relatives into question. A brother-in-law who is the ambassador to Cuba and his nephew, the ambassador to Malaysia, were recalled to Pyongyang, according to South Korean officials. Another relative, the deputy tourism minister, canceled a trip to a tourism conference in Taiwan this week.
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