Japan’s Sankei Shimbun daily says that a fierce struggle for power is under way between North Korea’s two leading officials.
 
The newspaper reported Sunday that four subordinates of Kim Won-hong, director of the North’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), were executed this spring for not attending an event for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
 
The report said that the ministry’s probe found that the four had not been notified of the event.
 
The newspaper said that Hwang Pyong-so, director of the Korean People’s Army General Political Bureau, who organized the event, seemed to have not notified them of the event on purpose.
 
The paper said that Kim Won-hong, who took up the post of MSS chief in April 2012, investigated Hwang and his wife on charges of bribery in which the wife died after an intense interrogation.
 
After being appointed the head of the General Political Bureau in April last year, Hwang reportedly initiated investigations into the activities of the foreign currency earning of Kim’s son Kim Chul.