N Korea ‘executed’ officials after failed Trump summit
North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States following the collapse of the second summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported yesterday. The Chosun Ilbo said Kim Hyok Chol, who laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied Kim on his private train, was executed by firing squad for “betraying the supreme leader” after he was “won over to the US” during pre-summit negotiations. The other officials were not named. Asked about the account, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was trying to verify it. Kim Hyok Chol was the North’s counterpart of US special representative Stephen Biegun in the run-up to the Hanoi summit in February. Some previous South Korean reports of North Korean purges and executions have later proved inaccurate.
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