North Korea’s leader set to free prisoners

North Korea is to pardon convicts in a move intended to boost the popularity of new leader Kim Jong-un, who succeeded his father after his death in mid- December.

The amnesty will begin on 1 February, reportedly to commemorate his late father Kim Jong-il’s 70th birthday and the 100th anniversary in April of the birth of his grandfather, North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency did not say what sorts of crimes would be pardoned or how many inmates would be freed.

The pardons will be the first such dispensations in more than six years.

A UN envoy on human rights in North Korea said last year that the country is estimated to hold up to 200,000 people in political prison camps. The North has denied the existence of gulags.

North Korea occasionally marks significant holidays by granting amnesties, and Pyongyang has promoted this year’s Kim Il-sung centenary as a significant milestone in the nation’s history.

North Korea last conducted such a special pardon in August 2005 to mark the 60th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

North Korea is seeking to extend the Kim dynasty into a third generation as North Korea grapples with chronic food shortages and remains locked in a long-running stand-off over its nuclear programme.