North Korea Defence Chief Hyon Yong-Choi publicly executed for showing disloyalty to Kim Jong Un.

North Korea's Defence Minister Hyon Yong-chol has been executed for showing disloyalty to leader Kim Jong-un.
Mr Hyon was killed on 30 April by anti-aircraft fire in front of an audience of hundreds. Mr Hyon had fallen asleep during an event attended by Kim Jong-un and had not carried out instructions.

The news comes weeks after the reported execution of 15 senior officials.
Among them were two vice ministers who had challenged Mr Kim over his policies and members of an orchestra, the South's National Intelligence Agency (NIS) said at the time.


Hyon Yong-Chol, as defence minister, was as close to Kim Jong-un as it is possible to get.
Such a public and brutal method of execution as obliteration by anti-aircraft gun would emphasise the cost of disloyalty.

Intelligence reports always have to be treated with scepticism but, in this case, the claims of the South Korean spy agency will be easy to verify. If they are not true, the defence minister would appear again in public.
Earlier, the South Korean agency said that senior officials were being executed at the rate of one a week. It all adds up to a picture of a leader in Pyongyang who feels very insecure and who is dangerous in his insecurity.

He was appointed defence minister last year. NK News said he last appeared in state media a day before the alleged execution date.

Last month, he travelled to Moscow to represent North Korea at a regional security conference, an event the NIS had originally reported that Mr Kim would attend himself.
Mike Madden of North Korea Leadership said that if true, the execution was "entirely a demonstration of power and authority".

In 2013, Kim purged and executed his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, once considered the second most powerful man in Pyongyang's leadership circle, for corruption and committing crimes damaging to the economy, along with a group of officials close to him.

Pyongyang's military leadership has been in a state of perpetual reshuffle since Kim took power.
Hyon, a little-known general, was promoted to the rank of vice marshal of the North Korean army in 2012.

The South Korean spy agency told politicians that Ma Won-chun, known as North Korea's chief architect of new infrastructure under Kim, was also purged.