RFE/RLMon, 03 Jun 2019 15:54 UTC
© KRT via AP VideoThis image made from video of a still image broadcasted Monday, June 3, 2019, by North Korea's KRT shows senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, second from right, and a clapping Kim Jong Un, center, sitting in the same row along with other top officials during a musical performance by the wives of Korean People's Army officers Sunday, June 2, 2019. The senior North Korean official who had been reported as purged over the failed nuclear summit with Washington was shown in state media on Monday enjoying a concert near leader Kim.
North Korean state media say a top aide to leader Kim Jong Un has appeared in public, despite a widely repeated South Korean report that he had been sent to a labor camp after a failed summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kim Jong Chol was Kim Jong Un's top negotiator in talks with Washington ahead of February's summit in Vietnam, which ended prematurely with no agreement.
Last week, a South Korean newspaper reported that he had been purged while another top official, special envoy to the U.S. Kim Hyok Chol, had been executed over the failure.But official North Korean news agency KCNA on June 3 reported that Kim Jong Chol attended a dance performance with Kim Jong Un a day earlier. Kim Hyok Chol was not listed among the attendees.
North Korea has previously executed officials who were made scapegoats for high-profile political blunders.
However, reports of purges have turned out to be inaccurate in the past.
Due to the secretive nature of the North Korean state, it is difficult to confirm or reject them.
Comment: Chances are that the alleged execution of Kim Hyok Chol will turn out to be a hoax, too. That's the way these things tend to go. From
Moon of Alabama:
Huffington Post - August 30 2013 - Hyon Song Wol, Kim Jong Un's Ex-Girlfriend, Reportedly Executed For Making Sex Tape
Unconfirmed reports claim the ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was executed by firing squad along with 11 others, after the group allegedly made and sold a sex tape.
Hyon Song Wol, a singer in North Korea's famed Unhasu Orchestra, was killed by machine gun along with 11 other members of the orchestra and the Wangjaesan Light Music Band, another popular state-run music group in North Korea, according to a report in The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest daily newspaper.
The report, which cites an anonymous source in China, says the group was arrested Aug. 17 for filming and selling a pornographic video featuring themselves.
New York Post - May 17 2014 - Kim Jong-Un's 'executed' ex seen alive on TV
Pyongyang's state TV showed Hyon Song-Wol, the head of a band known as Moranbong, delivering a speech at a national art workers rally in Pyongyang.
She expressed gratitude for Kim's leadership and pledged to work harder to "stoke up the flame for art and creative work".
In 2017 Hyon Song-Wol was elected to the Workers Party's Central Committee.
---
New York Times - February 10 2016 - Top North Korean General Is Said to Be Executed on Graft Charges
A top general in North Korea was executed this month on corruption charges, around the time the nation's leader, Kim Jong-un, warned the party and military elites against abuse of power and other misdeeds, a South Korean official said Wednesday.
The general, Ri Yong-gil, chief of the North Korean Army's general staff and ranked third in its hierarchy, was executed on charges of "factionalism, abuse of power and corruption" in the latest episode of Mr. Kim's "reign of terror," the official said.
Washington Times - May 10 2016 - North Korean general thought to be executed is actually alive
A top North Korean military general reported to have been executed three months ago is actually very much alive and has now been appointed to two senior-level positions within the nation's ruling Workers' Party.
Just like everything else!