Seoul intelligence service, which has erratic track record, says North Korean leader vanished from public life due to operation

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

South Korea’s spy agency claims it has solved the mystery of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s six-week public absence.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for the opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min.

The aide said the agency also told legislators in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.

After last being seen on state media on 3 September, Kim reappeared on 14 October hobbling with a cane, but smiling and looking thinner.

The speculation during his absence was particularly intense because of the Kim family’s importance to North Korea. The family has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.

It was not immediately clear how the information was obtained by the agency, which has a spotty track record of analysing developments in opaque North Korea.

The NIS also said North Korea has expanded five of its political prisoner camps, including the Yodok camp, which was relocated to the north-western city of Kilchu, according to Lim Dae-seong, an aide to the ruling party lawmaker Lee Cheol-woo, who also attended the briefing. It believes the camps hold about 100,000 prisoners, Lim said.

He said the agency also believed North Korea had recently used a firing squad to execute several people who had been close to Kim Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was considered the country’s second most powerful person before his sudden execution in December 2013.

In an intelligence success, the NIS correctly said that Jang had probably been dismissed from his posts before North Korea officially announced his arrest.

However, it received heavy criticism when its director acknowledged that it had ignored intelligence indicating North Korea’s impending shelling of a South Korean island in 2010. It also came under fire because of reports that it only learned of the 2011 death of the then leader Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un, more than two days after it occurred.