Now Kim hands top role to his sister
KIM Jong-Un has promoted his sister to North Korea’s top decision-making body as the dictator tightens his family’s iron grip on the country.
Kim Yo-Jong, who is the youngest daughter of former leader Kim Jong-Il, will replace her aunt as a member of the Workers’ Party Politburo, it was announced at the weekend.
The 30-year-old, who has frequently appeared alongside her brother in public, was referred to as a senior party official three years ago.
She is thought to have been responsible for the despot’s public image and was already influential as vice-director of the ‘propaganda and agitation’ department. In January, she was blacklisted by the US over links to severe human rights abuses in North Korea.
Her promotion was announced by the leader at a party meeting as part of a reshuffle that involved dozens of other top officials.
Kim has overseen four of the country’s six nuclear tests while carrying out a series of purges, including targeting his uncle and half-brother.
The uncle, Jang Song-Thaek, was executed in 2013 for treason.
And the dictator’s half-brother Kim Jong-Nam, 45, was killed in a Cold War- style assassination at an airport in Malaysia in February. His face was smeared with banned toxic nerve agent VX in Kuala Lumpur and he died within 20 minutes.
Two women – one Indonesian and the other Vietnamese – have appeared in court accused of the killing, but claim they had been duped into believing they were carrying out a prank for a hiddencamera television show.
The Kim family has ruled North Korea since its creation in 194 , when the current leader’s grandfather Kim Il-Sung took power. His son Kim Jong-Il then led the rogue state before Kim Jong-Un took charge on his father’s death in 2011.