North Korean singer Hyon Song-wol, who allegedly had romantic relations with leader Kim Jong-un, was reportedly arrested on August 17 for breaching laws on pornography, then killed three days later.
Song-wol was taken into police custody with 11 other people for violating legislation forbidding the distribution of pornographic material.
According to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Hyon and members of her band the Unhasu Ochestra were arrested on charges that they filmed themselves committing sex acts, then sold the videos.
The 12 were killed by machine gun firing squad three days after the arrests. Their families were forced to watch, then were arrested and transferred to prison camps. According to the newspaper report, the next-of-kin were incarcerated for being guilty by association.
"They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Band and Moranbong Band, as well as the families of the victims looked on," Chosun Ilbo stated.
Hyon and her band were nationalist pop stars, with such hits as "I Love Pyongyang" and "We are Troops of the Party." Her most famous song was "Excellent Horse-Like Lady."
It is rumored that Kim Jong-un met Hyon around 10 years ago, and the two began having a love affair, according to the Telegraph.
Former leader and father of Jong-un, Kim Jong-il reportedly wasn't thrilled with the couple's relations, and subsequently told his son to end things.
Hyon married a North Korean soldier and had a child, but some say that she didn't stop seeing Kim after she was married.
The Telegraph reported that an expert on North Korean affairs stated Hyon was killed for "political reasons."
"If these people had only made pornographic videos, then it is simply not believable that their punishment was execution," professor at Tokyo's Waseda University Toshimitsu Shigemura said. "They could have been made to disappear into the prison system there instead."
