North Korea’s Kim died in 2003: Japan professor

Body doubles have since taken his place, he writes in a book

TOKYO: A book by Japan’s professor Toshimitsu Shigemura at Japan’s respected Waseda University says Kim died in 2003 and a series of stand-ins have since taken his place at official state event.

Prof Shigemura says Kim was not seen in public for the 42 days after September 10, 2003, and in his book The True Character of Kim Jong Il claims the man that North Koreans refer to as the “Dear Leader” died of diabetes.

“In the years before he died, Kim took some really big decisions on North Korea’s relationships with the outside world,” says the professor, pointing to the historic June 2000 summit with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, a visit from Russian leader Vladimir Putin the following month and then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Then, suddenly, Kim disappeared, and there was chaos in the upper echelons of the country’s leadership, said Shigemura, a former journalist for the Mainichi newspaper who was posted to Seoul for six years from 1979 and then served for another five in Washington. A North Korean agent told him in 1995 that he had met one of Kim’s doubles, and that he used them to stand in at outside ceremonies because he was fearful of a coup.

After Kim’s death, a group of four very senior officials decided to protect their own positions by making the stand-in more permanent. Whenever anyone meets the North Korean leader, Shigemura says one of the four is alongside him “like a puppet-master.”
Pyongyang has denied the claim as “an utter lie”.