North Korea has issued a standing order calling for the execution of both the former South Korean president and her spy chief in response to an alleged assassination plot against Kim Jong Un.
Pyongyang is imposing the “death penalty on traitor Park Geun-hye” for masterminding a plot against the “supreme leadership,” the Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Former President Park, who was ousted earlier this year for corruption, signed off on a plan for “leadership change” in North Korea by way of political exile or assassination, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported Monday. The National Intelligence Service was reportedly tasked with executing the plot, which was ultimately not carried out.
The NIS has denied the existence of any such plot, claiming that the report “had no grounds.”
“We declare at home and abroad that we will impose the death penalty on traitor Park Geun-hye and ex-director of the puppet intelligence service … criminals of hideous state-sponsored terrorism who hatched and pressed for the heinous plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK,” KCNA, North Korean state media, wrote in response.
North Korea has been very sensitive to discussions in South Korea concerning possible decapitation strikes against the North in the event that a real North Korean missile strike appears imminent. The paranoid young dictator Kim Jong Un has reduced his public appearances and adjusted his movements, limiting travel to hours before dawn and using the vehicles of his subordinates.
Pyongyang accused the Central Intelligence Agency and the NIS of conspiring to eliminate North Korean leadership with a biochemical attack at a recent military parade. The North claims that the spy agencies recruited a North Korean lumberjack working in Russia to detonate an explosive device containing a deadly substance at a national event.
“We declare that in case the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces again attempt at hideous state-sponsored terrorism targeting the supreme leadership … we will impose summary punishment without advance notice,” KCNA said Wednesday.
The North and South are technically still at war, and North Korea regards the U.S. as a constant threat to its survival. Pyongyang regularly issues threats and warnings in response to perceived dangers and insults to its leadership. For instance, North Korea flipped out when Arizona Sen. John McCain called the North Korean dictator a “crazy fat kid.”
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