Michael Winter, USA TODAY 5:09 p.m. EST December 12, 2013
Jang Song Thaek attends a meeting in Beijing on August 14.(Photo: Li Xin, AP)
The powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been executed as a "traitor for all ages," the official news agency reported.
Jang Song Thaek faced a special military tribunal Thursday and was convicted of "anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts" in a bid to overthrow the the communist country's leadership, KCNA reported Friday in Pyongyang. The state news agency did not say when or how Jang was killed.
North Korean media reported Monday that Jang had been purged for crimes that included faction-building, corruption, drug use and womanizing. He was considered the country's most powerful figure after his nephew.
State TV aired humiliating photographs Monday that showed Jang considered the country's second most powerful figure after Kim, being hauled away from a meeting by two uniformed guards
STORY: North Korea purges Kim Jong Un's powerful uncle
"All the crimes committed by the accused were proved in the course of hearing and were admitted by him," KCNA said.
Calling Jang "a traitor to the nation for all ages," the report said he "did serious harm to the youth movement in our country, being part of the group of renegades and traitors in the field of youth work bribed by enemies."
"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 crime as attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state," the KCNA report continued, in typically bombastic fashion.
"It is an elementary obligation of a human being to repay trust with sense of obligation and benevolence with loyalty. However, despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him."
Jang Song Thaek attends a meeting in Beijing on August 14.(Photo: Li Xin, AP)
The powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been executed as a "traitor for all ages," the official news agency reported.
Jang Song Thaek faced a special military tribunal Thursday and was convicted of "anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts" in a bid to overthrow the the communist country's leadership, KCNA reported Friday in Pyongyang. The state news agency did not say when or how Jang was killed.
North Korean media reported Monday that Jang had been purged for crimes that included faction-building, corruption, drug use and womanizing. He was considered the country's most powerful figure after his nephew.
State TV aired humiliating photographs Monday that showed Jang considered the country's second most powerful figure after Kim, being hauled away from a meeting by two uniformed guards
STORY: North Korea purges Kim Jong Un's powerful uncle
"All the crimes committed by the accused were proved in the course of hearing and were admitted by him," KCNA said.
Calling Jang "a traitor to the nation for all ages," the report said he "did serious harm to the youth movement in our country, being part of the group of renegades and traitors in the field of youth work bribed by enemies."
"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 crime as attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state," the KCNA report continued, in typically bombastic fashion.
"It is an elementary obligation of a human being to repay trust with sense of obligation and benevolence with loyalty. However, despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him."