Planet Earth's most brutal ruler
Whom will North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un kill next, and how?
Image: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un watches a drill by the
Korean People's Army. Photograph: Reuters
Tales of Kim Jong-un's ruthlessness -- some exaggerated
-- have made him more feared within his country, and with a
perpetual finger on the nuclear trigger earning him global
notoriety.
Ever since he assumed power in 2011, the 32-year-old North
Korean dictator is said to have executed nearly 75 people,
including members of his family, for incurring his wrath or
likely daring to stand up to him.
His latest order adds to his growing reputation for whimsical
barbarity.
Image: Kim Jong-un, centre, with his wife Ri Sol Ju, third from
left, at Pyongyang Airport's new terminal. Photograph: Reuters
Ma Won-chun, the chief architect of Pyongyang Airport's Terminal
II, was reportedly murdered because Kim disliked his designs.
According to KCNA, the country's state news agency, Kim said:
'Defects were manifested in the last phase of the construction
of the Terminal 2 because the designers failed to bear in mind
the party's idea of architectural beauty that it is the life and
soul and core in architecture to preserve the Juche
(self-reliant) character and national identity.' (Whatever that
means! North Korean-Commie gobbledygook!!!)
'It is necessary to finish the construction of the terminal to
be an icon of Songun Korea, the face of the country and the
gateway to Pyongyang.' (More North Korean-Commie
gobbledygook!!!)
Kim's other murderous excesses:
Execution
by anti-aircraft gun
Image: North Korean Defence Minister Hyon Yong Chol delivers a
speech in Moscow, April 16, 2015. Inset: A ZPU-4 anti-aircraft
system.
North Korean Defence Minister Hyon Yong-Chol was publicly
executed with an anti-aircraft gun for reportedly falling asleep
during military meetings and talking back to Kim.
The 66 year old, who was appointed head of North Korea's
military in 2012, was killed with hundreds watching at a
military camp in the capital Pyongyang on April 30.
The anti-aircraft gun system used was a ZPU-4 comprised of four
14.5mm heavy machine guns (similar to a US .50 caliber heavy
machine gun) mounted on a towed wheeled chassis.
When directed at the human body at close range, the destruction
would be devastating and a human body likely pulverised.
Mortar
shelled for not mourning
Image: Kim Jong-un guides a multiple-rocket launch drill.
Photograph: Reuters
In the days following Kim's takeover of his country, several key
government officials and powerful generals were either arrested
or executed.
Among them was then deputy defence minister Kim Chol, who was
executed in January 2012 for enjoying liquor in the company of a
female colleague in the North Korean military in violation of
the dictator's explicit warning against 'singing or dancing,
merrymaking or recreation' during the mourning period for his
father Kim Jong-il.
Chol and others were reportedly executed using mortar rounds
fired at point-blank range.
According to the strategic affairs magazine Foreign
Policy, Chol attended a wreath laying ceremony at the
Sino-Korean Friendship Tower in Pyongyang with then Chinese Vice
Premier (now Premier) Li Keqiang in October 2011.
The execution of an official who attended an event with a top
leader of North Korea's solitary ally was possibly aimed at
deterring any future challenges to the young leader.
Fed
to hungry dogs!
Image: Kim Jong-un with his uncle Jang Song-thaek. Photograph:
Reuters
When Kim Jong-il died, Jang Song Thaek -- married to the older
Kim's sister and then considered the second most powerful man in
North Korea -- was widely seen as regent to Kim Jong-un.
An insecure Kim felt his uncle was trying to create a power
faction by letting people who had been previously dismissed
return to work.
According to KCNA, 'From long ago, Jang had a dirty political
ambition. He dared not raise his head when Kim Il-sung and Kim
Jong-il (Kim
Jong-un's grandfather and father) were alive. He began
revealing his true colours, thinking that it was just the time
for him to realise his wild ambition in the period of historic
turn when the generation of the revolution was replaced.'
'The accused Jang brought together undesirable forces and formed
a faction as the boss of a modern day factional group for a long
time and thus committed such hideous crimes as attempting to
overthrow the State,' KCNA added.
Jang was stripped of all posts and expelled from the Workers
Party for offences including factionalism, corruption and
dissolute behaviour. A special military tribunal found him
guilty of treason.
Image: A woman walks past a television set showing a report on
Jang Song Thaek at a railway station in Seoul. Photograph: Kim
Hong-Ji/Reuters
Branding him 'despicable human scum who was worse than a dog who
perpetrated cursed acts of treachery' Jang and five of his aides
were allegedly stripped naked and fed to 120 hungry hounds, who
had been starved for three days.
The whole process lasted an hour, and as they were eaten,
hundreds of officials watched. However, this version of Jang's
death has been disputed.
A month later, reports emerged that Jang's relatives too had
been executed.
The relatives executed include Jang's sister Jang Kye-sun, her
husband Jon Yong-jin, North Korea's ambassador to Cuba, Jang
Yong-chol, Jang's nephew of Jang and the country's ambassador to
Malaysia, as well as his two sons.
The sons, daughters and grandchildren of Jang's two brothers
were also executed, the South Korean news agency Yonhap
reported, adding that it was unclear when they were put to deathCourtesy towards Mr. Pramod Agrawal
