North Korean defector 'forced to watch 11 musicians executed with anti-aircraft guns'

Kim Jong-un had 11 musicians executed with anti-aircraft guns and orders aides to pick out sex slaves from North Korea’s schools, a defector has claimed.

The third-generation dictator also has a number of luxury hideouts that shield him from the eyes of Western spies, the woman, 26, reportedly claimed.

She said she was among 10,000 people once forced to watch the execution of musicians accused of making a pornographic video, at Pyongyang’s military academy.

She told the Daily Mirror: “They were lashed to the end of anti-aircraft guns. Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere.

“And then after that military tanks moved in and they ran over the bits on the ground where the remains lay.”

The woman escaped to China and then Seoul, South Korea, after her father died in 2015. His status in the regime, as a colonel in the North Korean military, afforded them some privileges and she even met Mr Kim at events, finding him “terrifying”, she told the site.

The dictator has teen girls removed from school to work at his hideouts as sex slaves, she claimed.

She said: “They take the prettiest and ensure they have straight, good legs.”

Due to the secrecy of the North Korean state it is notoriously difficult to establish the truth of defectors’ claims.

One academic, Dr Colin Alexander, an Asia expert at Nottingham Trent University, told The Independent: “In some cases there probably will be some elements of slavery in North Korea. I’ve read various things over the years about gulags, and sex slaves.”

This week Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the UN should press North Korea to stamp out child sexual abuse, saying it had verified four cases since 2008. The country’s leaders say committing such crimes is “inconceivable” for its citizens.

HRW said: “North Koreans who recently escaped to third countries or maintain contacts in the North told HRW that when girls are sexually harassed or abused, some guardians refuse to formally complain to police or other government officials because they believe government officials will not investigate, and the girl and the family will face stigmatisation.”

Dr Alexander added that the latest revelations fit “a narrative that we’re almost becoming accustomed to hearing”.

He said it was possible that ”somebody with a vested interest has got hold of this defector and has decided that it’s within their interest to approach international media and to run a story about this within the current climate”.

He added: “I’m in no way endorsing the Kim regime here. Behind the narrative is most likely somebody, or an organisation, with an interest in putting pressure on the Kim regime.

“If they’re a defector, and they’ve lived all their lives in North Korea, they will not be very well versed in how the international media works.”

Mr Trump told the UN this week the US was prepared to “totally destroy” North Korea if “forced to”. He provoked a storm of consternation among allies when he said Pyongyang faced “fire and fury” if it continued to menace its neighbours earlier this year.

He has tried to persuade China, the North’s sole major ally, to exert greater pressure on the Kim regime in order to force it to drop its nuclear ambitions.

The UN has imposed repeated rounds of sanctions with the same goal, but the North has remained defiant.