Did Kim Jong-un Also Order Deaths of Uncle’s Family Members?
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Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images(SEOUL, South Korea) — If a report by the South Korean news agency Yonhap can be confirmed, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s alleged savagery knows no boundaries.
Yonhap says that following the execution in December of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was considered the second most powerful man in the country, Kim ordered the deaths of Jang’s sister and husband along with his nephews plus sons, daughters and grandchildren of Jang’s two deceased elder brothers.
The news service cited unnamed sources for its information. Meanwhile, some of Jang’s relatives were spared death but exiled to remote parts of North Korea, presumably never to be heard from again.
Jang was married to the daughter of Kim’s grandfather, founding father Kim Il Sung.
Hong Kwan-hee, a professor in the Department of North Korea Studies at Korea University, speculates that if the reports are true, they are a sign of Kim’s paranoia “that other family members could form an anti-Kim Jong-un movement, so this is a measure for rooting out opposition.”
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