2013: Jang Sung-taek, North Korean purgee
December 12th, 2015 Headsman
On this date in 2013, according to North Korea’s state news organ, Kim Jong-un‘s uncle was sentenced to death and directly executed.
Days earlier, Jang Sung-taek (alternatively, Song-taek, Sung-thaek, and various similar transliterations) had suffered an extremely visible fall when, in a Saddam-like twist, he was arrested on live television in the midst of a politburo meeting.
Image from KCTV (North Korea) shows Jang Sung-taek being arrested during a politburo meeting in Pyongyang.
Even so, the severity of his treatment was a surprise given his family tie to the supreme leader (he was the husband of Kim Jong-il‘s sister).
Long one of the secretive state’s top officials — his prestige recovered from two previous falls from favor in the late 1980s and early 2000s — Jang was among the officials involved in the transfer of power from the late Kim Jong-il to the young dictator Kim Jong-un. It is uncertain exactly what brought about his destruction; speculation ran to differing philosophies of economic development and/or raw power rivalry, little clarified by a government statement denouncing him as “despicable human scum … worse than a dog” for his “thrice-cursed acts of treachery” and “decadent capitalist lifestyle.”
Jang was executed by shooting: machine gun fire in the “normal” version, or the more spectacular novelty of anti-aircraft fire by some accounts. (Reports to the effect that Jang was executed by being fed to a pack of wild dogs can still be found, but this story was fabricated by a satirist and its subsequent circulation cautions against a propensity to give credence to every lurid rumor about North Korea.)
Jang’s fall reportedly also brought about the execution of “all relatives” and hundreds of officials who were considered members of his faction.
On this day..
- 2011: Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser - 2019
- 1799: Nicola Fiorentino, Jacobin man - 2018
- 1868: The Reno brothers and Charles Anderson lynched in New Albany - 2017
- 1924: A day in the death penalty around the U.S. - 2016
- 1888: Tsimequor, indigenous Snuneymuxw - 2014
- 1957: Jorge Villanueva Torres, Monstruo de Armendáriz - 2013
- 1996: Lem Tuggle, Tim Kaine client - 2012
- 1952: Hard Luck Billy Cook - 2011
- 1942: Klava Nazarova, Hero of the Soviet Union - 2010
- 1777: Rev. Benjamin Russen, child rapist - 2009
- 1984: Alpha Otis O’Daniel Stephens: hear it live - 2008
- 1635: Ivan Sulyma - 2007
Entry Filed under: 21st Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Korea,Mass Executions,North Korea,Politicians,Power,Ripped from the Headlines,Shot,Treason
Tags: 2010s, 2013, corruption, december 12, jang sung-taek, kim jong-il, kim jong-un, politics
