Pyongyang purges regime, five officials shot "with 60 bullets"
Executed at the end of October in the military base at Seoncheon County, North Pyongan Province. A sixth person has committed suicide, driven also the local head of the NSA and ten party cadres. In September, fired more than 30 party cadres to Shinuiju.
Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The North Korean regime has executed at least five of government officials and cadres of the Communist Party in North Pyongan province, east of the country along the border with China. To the mass execution is added the suicide of a sixth officer, in fear of being killed like his colleagues in the purges ordered by the dictatorship. News of the deaths first emerged over the last few days – reportedly dating to the end of October - following the expulsion ordered in September of more than 30 party cadres from Shinuiju, the provincial capital, and other areas of the province of North Pyongan.

According to the Daily North Korean (site that deals with the situation inside the Kim Jong-il regime), events date to October 28 and took place in the village of Unjong on the island of Shinmi, Seoncheon county, about 70 km south-east of Shinuiju. Elements within the regime met "the cadres of the provincial Party and officials in the area of trade" in the county seat of Seoncheon, to report the results of inspections carried out in recent weeks.

In response to allegations of corruption and malfeasance, officials ordered the execution of the head of the unit, his deputy (a woman of 39), a ship’s captain, the Party official in charge of food distribution and the head of the agricultural cooperative in the village of Unjong. The five were executed with 60 bullets "at the army barracks shooting range" in Seoncheon County. In particular, the ship’s captain was sentenced to death on suspicion - adds to the Daily NK - of having stolen 60 thousand dollars deposited in a bank in China.

Local sources also added that the local official in charge of Justice also committed suicide for fear of being executed, to which must be added, "the expulsion of the local manager for the National Security Agency (NSA) and ten party cadres" . The peculiarity of this "purge" of the regime, the sources conclude, is that investigations and death sentences were reportedly performed by a team of "inspectors" from the province of North Hamkyung (who carried out the job with "coldness and detachment "), and not from the capital Pyongyang.