The Chosun Ilbo said Kim Hyok-chol, who had laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied Mr. Kim on his private train, was executed by firing squad for “betraying the supreme leader” after he was turned away by the U.S.

North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States following the collapse of the second summit between leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported on Friday.

The Chosun Ilbo said Kim Hyok-chol, who laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied Mr. Kim on his private train, was executed by firing squad for “betraying the supreme leader” after he was turned away by the U.S.

“Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at Mirim Airport along with four senior foreign ministry officials following an investigation,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying.

The other officials were not named.

Kim Hyok Chol was the North’s counterpart for U.S. special representative Stephen Biegun in the run-up to the Hanoi summit in February.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, declined to comment on the report.

The paper also said Mr. Kim Jong-un’s interpreter Shin Hye-yong was sent to a prison camp for a mistake at the summit.

She failed to translate Mr. Kim’s new proposal when Mr. Trump declared “no deal” and walked away from the table, Chosun reported, citing another unnamed diplomatic source.

Mr. Kim Jong-un and Mr. Trump left the Vietnamese capital without a deal after they failed to reach agreement on rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

The North has since sought to raise the pressure and carried out two short-range missile tests in May.

Senior party official Kim Yong-chol, the North’s counterpart for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the nuclear talks, was also sent to a labour camp, the paper said.

In April, South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee said Mr. Kim Yong-chol had been censured over his handling of the Hanoi summit, despite the fact that he had recently been named a member of the State Affairs Commission, a supreme governing body chaired by Mr. Kim Jong-un.

News of the reported purge came as North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, mouthpiece of the ruling party, on Thursday warned that officials who committed anti-party or anti-revolutionary acts would face the “stern judgement of the revolution”.

Previous South Korean reports of North Korean purges and executions have later proved inaccurate.

The Chosun Ilbo itself incorrectly reported in 2013 that Hyon Song-wol, head of the North’s Samjiyon Orchestra, was executed by firing squad for distributing and watching pornographic content.

And the Unification Ministry also mistakenly announced in February 2016 that Ri Yong-gil, chief of the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army, had been executed.