The uncle of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was ripped to pieces by a pack of starving dogs in a slow, barbaric execution that Kim himself watched, an official Chinese newspaper reported.
Jang Song Thaek, the 67-year-old family member once considered Kim’s right-hand man, died horribly with five other condemned officials in a capital punishment ritual called “quan jue”— execution by dogs, according to the Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po, a mouthpiece for China’s government.
The ghastly account of Jeng’s execution could not be independently verified, but its publication in an official Chinese daily signaled Beijing’s growing disgust with Kim, according to a Singapore daily, the Straits Times, which suggested the Chinese might have leaked the gory tale to further embarrass and marginalize Pyongyang’s reigning madman.
Quan jue is reserved for North Korea’s most hated enemies— and for those occasions when a simple firing squad doesn’t send a strong enough message, according to the Chinese newspaper.
Jang was stripped naked before and literally fed to the dogs as Kim and hundreds of North Korean officials watched, Wen Wei Po reported. The 120 animals, deliberately starved beforehand, spent more than an hour devouring their six victims, the newspaper reported.
Jang’s fall from power was swift. His sudden arrest in December for treason, corruption and moral depravity stunned international observers who considered him a made man as the regime’s second most powerful figure. His execution, announced on Dec. 12, capped another purge of political rivals—real and imaginary — as Kim continues to tighten his grip on the outcast communist nation.
In a New Year’s address to North Koreans, Kim celebrated his uncle’s demise by calling him “scum” and “factionalist filth.”