Kim’s niece kills herself in Paris

A 29-year-old North Korean woman committed suicide in Paris, France last month; intelligence sources have confirmed that she was a niece of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader. The incident was another incident in a series of turbulent lives of women associated with North Korea’s ruling dynasty.
Jang Kum-song, who was studying in Paris, was found in August by her chauffeur and her maid two days after her death at a villa in Paris.
The incident nonplused French and South Korean intelligence authorities, who had followed her life in Paris closely, according to a Korean intelligence official. Ms. Jang was the only child of Jang Song-thaek, first vice department director of the North’s Workers’ Party, and Kim Kyong-hui, the party’s light industry department director and younger sister of Kim Jong-il.
“She was tall and beautiful by western standards,” this source said, “and her friends did not know that she was from North Korea.”
Another source said the cause of her death was an overdose of sleeping pills. She reportedly committed suicide because her parents opposed her marriage to a suitor and had pressed her to return to Pyongyang. The French authorities cooperated with the North Korean government to send her body to Pyongyang secretly, the source said.
Ms. Jang’s parents, ironically, had married despite strong opposition from Kim Il Sung, the North Korean founder. The Great Leader exiled her fiance to Wonsan, in the North Korean eastern province of Kangwon, but they were allowed to marry in 1972. Mr. Jang rose in the North Korean power elite, but was demoted in 2003 for alleged abuse of authority. He made a political comeback last January, the intelligence sources said.
Kim Jong-il himself fell in love with Song Hye-rim, an actress, in the late 1960s. He reportedly forced Ms. Song to divorce her husband; she produced an heir, Kim Jong-nam, in 1971. But the marriage was never recognized by Kim Il Sung, and Mr. Kim eventually separated from her.
Ms. Song later died in exile in Moscow; another of Kim Jong-il’s mistresses, Ko Yong-hee, died in exile in Paris two years ago.

by Lee Young-jong