It will be interesting to see how the president of people who participate in and watch Naked and Afraid spins this, but if reports coming from South Korea are correct, then North Korean President and Trump’s BFF Kim Jong Un may have had five officials executed over the failed summit with the American supreme leader of people who play in mud.
According to the Guardian, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly looking into claims coming from a South Korean newspaper (North Korea’s press is only allowed to praise Kim Jong Un; think of them as the country’s Fox News) that after a failed second summit in Vietnam with President Trump, Kim Jong Un ordered several people involved in Pyongyang’s nuclear negotiations with Washington be put to death.
“We’ve seen the reporting to which you are referring,” Pompeo told a news conference in Berlin, the Guardian reports. “We’re doing our best to check it out. I don’t have anything else to add to that today.”
Sometime last week, reports began surfacing that Kim Hyok-chol, a senior official who had been counterpart to U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun in the run-up to the summit, had been executed over the failed talks between the little dictator and the American dictator with little hands.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper claimed that foreign ministry officials in charge of preparing the February meeting in Hanoi were killed in March. The newspaper claims that unnamed North Korean sources confirmed the killings but the information has not been independently verified, the Guardian reports.
According to the South Korean paper, Kim Yong-chol had initially been subjected to forced labor and “ideological education.” Chosun Ilbo said Kim, who doesn’t do embarrassment on any level, reportedly decided that the punishment wasn’t enough and ordered the execution of all senior officials involved in the summit.
“Kim Hyok-chol was investigated and executed at Mirim airport with four foreign ministry,” an unnamed North Korea source said, according to the newspaper, adding that they were charged with spying for the United States, the Guardian reports.
From the Guardian:
Kim Yong-chol was forced to work in Jagang province after his dismissal, the newspaper’s source said, adding that Kim Song-hye, who carried out working-level negotiations with Kim Hyok-chol, was sent to a political prison camp.
Shin Hye-yong, who interpreted for the North Korean leader at the Hanoi summit, was reportedly detained at a political prison camp for undermining Kim Jong-un’s authority by making a critical interpreting mistake, the newspaper said.
Kim Yo-jong, the regime leader’s sister who has been at her brother’s side throughout both nuclear summits, is also said to be “lying low” on her brother’s orders, the paper reported, citing an unnamed South Korean government official, who said: “We are not aware of Kim Yo-jong’s track record since the Hanoi meeting.”
Since becoming leader of North Korea in 2011, Kim has been linked to several high profile executions including the killing of Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle and mentor in December 2013. The Guardian does note that South Korea and North Korea aren’t friends and that executions reported in the South Korean newspaper have turned out to be inaccurate.
Nevertheless, Kim is the man who Trump calls friend and the man that Trump secretly admires.