N Korea ‘executes’ envoy in a purge after failed summit

Seoul, May 31

North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States following the collapse of the second summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

The Chosun Ilbo said Kim Hyok Chol, who laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied Kim on his private train, was executed by firing squad for “betraying the supreme leader” after he was “won over to the US” during pre-summit negotiations.

“Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at Mirim Airport along with four senior foreign ministry officials following an investigation,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying. The other officials were not named.

Asked about the account, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was trying to verify it. “We’ve seen the reporting to which you’re referring. We’re doing our best to check it out,” he told reporters on a visit to Berlin.

“I don’t have anything else to add to that today.” Kim Hyok Chol was the North’s counterpart of US special representative Stephen Biegun in the run-up to the Hanoi summit in February. South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, declined to comment on the report.

Some previous South Korean reports of North Korean purges and executions have later proved inaccurate. News of the reported purge came as North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, mouthpiece of the ruling party, Thursday warned that officials who committed anti-party or anti-revolutionary acts would face the “stern judgement of the revolution”. — AFP

Paying the ‘price’ 

• A South Korean newspaper claimed Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March along with four foreign ministry officials after they were charged with spying for US
• Kim Hyok Chol had laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting. Kim’s interpreter Shin Hye Yong was sent to a prison camp for a mistake at the summit
• Kim Yong Chol, the North’s counterpart to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in nuclear talks, was also sent to a labour camp, the paper said