North Korea’s Kim Jong-un ‘killed uncle and brother in Chinese plot’

Kim Jong-un believed his uncle Jang Song-thaek was preparing to remove him from power and install his half-brother Kim Jong-nam in his place, it has been claimed. 

Both men involved in the alleged plot, which was revealed by Japanese newspaper Nikkei Asian Review, are now dead. Jang was executed in December 2013 and Kim’s brother was assassinated last February in mysterious circumstances.

Sources revealed the plot needed the support of the Chinese government in order to succeed, with Beijing believed to be growing increasingly impatient with dictator Kim’s increasingly erratic leadership. 

But a furious Kim discovered evidence of the North Korea putsch before it could be carried out, which caused the tyrant to “fly into a rage” and order the exception of his uncle, according to the shock claim.

Jang’s death was announced by state-run media and accompanied by an angry tirade from Kim himself.

The statement said: “[He was] human scum, who was worse than a dog. [He] perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader.

“[He] had desperately worked for years to destabilise and bring down the DPRK and grab the supreme power of the party and state by employing all the most cunning and sinister means and methods.”

It took several more years before Kim Jong-nam was killed, in a coordinated assassination believed to have been orchestrated by his half-brother’s administration. 

Kim Jong-nam died when he was attacked in Kuala Lumpar Airport by two women, who covered his face with a cloth soaked in noxious chemicals. He died soon after but North Korea rejected accusations of responsibility. 

Rumours of coups regularly swirl through the hermit state’s ultra-secretive government with nany defectors placing their hope in another of Kim’s uncles to overthrow the despot. 

Notorious playboy Kim Pyong-il, who is despised by the regime and currently in semi-exile as an ambassador in the Czech Republic, could finally break the three-generation blood dynasty, a defector said. 

Kim Joo-il, a former solider in the North Korean army who now lives in south London, said Pyong-il was incredibly popular with North Korean citizens and could end the brainwashing, starvation and genocide in the east Asian state.

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He told Express.co.uk: “Kim Jong-un is afraid of him. Kim Jong-un thinks he is the rightful leader but Kim Pyong-il is more so in reality. 

“The North Korean people all know him and support him. The North Korean government is trying to pretend Kim Jong-un has settled in but there is a power struggle in the regime.”

As a young man, Pyong-il threw raucous parties in Pyongyang and became a renowned womaniser. People at his events would chant ‘long live Kim Pyong-il!’, something that made his father, leader and demi-God Kim il-Sung, furious. 

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From that point he was shunned by his suspicious family and the regime, while his half-brother Kim Jong-il became more favoured and eventually succeeded his father as leader. 

With his nephew Kim Jong-un now in control, the 62-year-old spends most of his time outside of North Korea, with a source revealing last year he is treated like “a scarecrow” by the regime. 

The source said: “They did not even let his children hang out with others, so they were also isolated just like their father.

“It’s not as if Kim Jong -un has acknowledged him as his uncle. It’s more like he’s seen as a mere ambassador.”