PYONGYANG, North Korea, Dec. 21 (UPI) —
Several hundred relatives of the recently executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have been rounded up and imprisoned or killed, reports said.
Relatives of Jang Song-thaek, the once powerful adviser to Kim who was charged with treason and executed recently, will be sent to slave labor camps, experts said. Some of the relatives are very distant and may not have even had contact with Jang, the Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.
"At around 10 pm on the night of [December] 13, the day after Jang was executed, armed men from the Ministry of State Security arrived in the Pyongchon area of Pyongyang, where a lot of his relatives lived," a source in the North Korean capital told the Daily NK newspaper, a media outlet run by North Korean defectors.
Additionally, Kim appears to be consolidating his hold on power. For the first time this week, the state’s official newspaper used the phrase "great leader" in reference to Kim. It was previously only used in reference to Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, Yonhap News Agency reported.