Kim reappears with mystery mark on arm
The North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, emerged from three weeks of unexplained seclusion on Friday and set off a new mystery. Sharp-eyed Pyongyang watchers detected a suspicious mark on his arm.
Images posted on state media showed Kim, believed to be about 36, in apparently jovial spirits opening a fertiliser plant.
There was little doubt in intelligence circles that the video footage was new and real, but scrutiny of one still image showed a dark mark on Kim’s right arm that some experts speculated might have been left by recent medical treatment.
At one point during his absence, the Daily NK website reported he had undergone heart surgery. Doctors interviewed by the website said the mark might have been left by a needle used to access coronary arteries to insert a stent, a tube-shaped device used to improve the blood supply in patients with heart disease.
The mark was exposed as Kim moved his arm, lifting his sleeve.
It was not there when he was last photographed, presiding over a politburo meeting on April 11.
Kim’s absence from public view sparked speculation he was dead, in a coma, infected with the coronavirus or was preparing for some kind of nuclear test. The fertiliser plant he visited is suspected by some experts of producing uranium for warheads.
He was accompanied by his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, fuelling speculation that she is likely to succeed him at the head of the family dynasty, which has run North Korea since 1948. – Sunday Times