Yahoo News Kim Jong-un was given his first gun aged 11, new biography on North Korean leader reveals
Kim Jong-un was given his first gun at the age of 11, a new biography has revealed.
The North Korean leader wore a Colt .45 pistol on his hip when he was still a child, the book said.
The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong-un, written by Washington Post journalist Anna Fifield, examines Kim’s time at a private school in Bern, Switzerland.
It claims he was known as “little dictator” because he would kick and spit at other pupils when he didn’t get his way.
Quoting the book, the Telegraph reported that Kim - who recently met Russian president Vladimir Putin - was given his first gun at 11 and his first car at just seven.
He also enjoyed playing Super Mario video games and pinball.
The book recounts how Kim was 12 years old when he was sent off to school in Switzerland in 1996.
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He went by the fake name of “Pak Un” and lived with his aunt before she defected to the US.
He enjoyed playing basketball, but would get upset when fellow pupils spoke to him in German, a language he was not strong in.
His aunt, Ko Yong Suk, said she tried to create a family atmosphere in their Swiss home.
“Their friends would come over, and I would make them snacks. It was a very normal childhood with birthday parties and gifts and Swiss kids coming over to play,” she said.
She believes his years in Europe convinced him that he would be a “nobody” outside North Korea, inspiring him to carry on the regime of his father, Kim Jong-il.
“The boy grew up thinking he was special,” the book says.
