The final decision to execute Jang Song Thaek, last seen publicly being frog-marched by armed guards from a special party session last week, was probably made by Kim, his nephew, and Kim Kyong-hui, his wife, according to several sources.
News of Jang's execution was accompanied by a string of extraordinary insults, branding him a "traitor for all ages" and "despicable human scum" who was "worse than a dog." A 2,700-word state media report of his trial in a special military tribunal on Thursday said he had admitted to plotting insurrection and a string of other crimes. "He let the decadent capitalist lifestyle find its way to our society by distributing all sorts of pornographic pictures among his confidants since 2009." The report said Jang led a "dissolute, depraved life" and had squandered at least 4.6 million euro from state coffers on gambling. He was executed, probably by firing squad, immediately after the tribunal.
Jang's killing is the highest-level purge since Kim Jong-un inherited power from his father Kim Jong-il in 2011 and has left opinion divided on what it means. Many experts say Kim had no choice but to remove his powerful but corrupt uncle if he wanted to graduate from young pretender to dictator "He had to go," says veteran Pyongyang watcher Andrei Lankov. "To really start running the country Kim must get rid of the old guard. They are so much older; they are in their sixties and seventies and he is in his thirties."
But even if Jang's removal was operationally logical, the violence of his public humiliation and disposal was highly unusual, accepts Lankov. "One possibility is that he wanted to terrify everyone, to show that he is young but someone to be afraid of, to show that nobody is immune," he says. "It might also reflect his personal animosity to Jang. He did not like the man, who probably bossed him around."