Kim Jong-un 'poisoned aunt for backchat over her husband's execution'

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un ordered that his own aunt be poisoned after she complained about the execution of her husband, a defector has claimed.

The unnamed defector said the aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, had complained when her 67-year-old husband Jang Song Thaek, a powerful political mentor to Kim Jong-un, was executed in 2013 on charges of treason and corruption.

Jang was executed after he opposed Kim's plans to build a water park, the defector told CNN.

The defector said he was executed in an "underground secret room" but some of his direct family members were shot dead while others were sentenced to labour camps.

The 68-year-old aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, disappeared in September 2013, a few months after her husband's death.

She was a close aide to her brother Kim Jong-il for decades and assumed senior positions in the ruling party, including becoming a four-star general in 2010.

Korean media reported she committed suicide five days after her husband's execution.

Last November another defector claimed Kim Kyong Hui had died from a stroke during an argument about her husband’s execution.

The latest defector said only Kim Jong-un's bodyguard unit, Unit 974, knew about the poisoning and that more recently senior officials learned her fate.