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A Feb. 10 YTN report claiming that former Korean People’s Army Chief of General Staff Ri Yong-gil had been purged

A North Korean general reported dead by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) has turned up alive and well, while another seemingly thriving official‘s star has fallen.

A May 10 report on appointments at the first plenary session of the seventh Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) Central Committee in the Rodong Sinmun - the party’s official newspaper - mentioned former Korean People’s Army Chief of General Staff Ri Yong-gil as having been named as a central military committee member and politburo member nominee.

The same Ri was reported in February as having been unexpectedly executed. Yonhap News quoted a “North Korea source” at the time as saying Ri had been put to death on changes of factionalism and corruption.

Quite often, the “North Korea source” cited by news outlets is the NIS, which uses the approach to leak sensitive information or intelligence to particular media while concealing itself as the source. Indeed, Yonhap’s reference to Ri as “having been identified by the NIS as purged” in a May 9 article on his appointment suggested that the NIS was the source behind the purge report three months earlier.

The claims regarding Ri’s execution now appear set to go down as an intelligence failure for the agency.

Meanwhile, strategic military commander and North Korean missile unit director Kim Nak-kyom was not included among the members of the KWP central military committee. Kim had previously been named a committee member a month after his Mar. 2012 appointment as commander of the North’s Strategic Rocket Forces (now the Strategic Force), and seemed to be riding high with his promotion last year to People’s Army general.

His recent omission could be a punishment for the failures of three separate Musudan missile launches last month. The failed launches for the Musudan - with a range of 3,000 to 4,000 km that would reportedly allow it strike US bases in Guam - may have caused setbacks in leader Kim Jong-un’s plans to tout the completion of a nuclear warhead delivery system as an achievement ahead of the seventh congress.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer and Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]