North Korea executes defence chief with an anti-aircraft gun - South Korea agency

By Ju-min Park and James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea executed its defence chief by putting him in front of an anti-aircraft gun at a firing range, Seoul's National Intelligence Service told lawmakers, which would be the latest in a series of high-level purges since Kim Jong Un took charge.

Hyon Yong Chol, who headed the isolated nuclear-capable country's military, was charged with treason, including disobeying Kim and falling asleep during an event at which North Korea's young leader was present, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed in a closed-door meeting with the spy agency on Wednesday.

His execution was watched by hundreds of people, according to NIS intelligence shared with lawmakers.

It was not clear how the NIS obtained the information and it is not possible to independently verify such reports from within secretive North Korea.

"The NIS official said it had been confirmed by multiple sources. It is still just intelligence, but he said they were confident," Shin Kyoung-min, a lawmaker and member of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, who attended the briefing, told Reuters.

Experts on North Korea said there was no sign of instability in Pyongyang, but there could be if purges continued.

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Jeff Rathke, said he could not confirm the reports about Hyon but called them "disturbing."

"If they are true, (they) describe another extremely brutal act by the North Korean regime. These reports, sadly, are not the first in this regard," he told a regular news briefing.