Tokyo: North Korea`s next leader Kim Jong-Un visited Japan as a child using a Brazilian passport, and could even have gone to Tokyo Disneyland, a Japanese newspaper reported on Thursday.

He was accompanied by another boy believed to have been his older brother Jong-Chul, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, as the 20-something appeared to be trying to consolidate his grip on the hermit state in the wake of his father`s death.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

The two entered Japan on May 12, 1991, and left the country 11 days later, using Brazilian passports that featured their photographs, the paper said, citing intelligence officials. The pair had obtained Japanese visas in Vienna and Jong-Un used the pseudonym of Joseph Pak, the report said. It added that Jong-Un was eight years old then, but did not say if the pair were accompanied by anyone else.

Japan`s public security authorities were alerted to their arrival as possible North Koreans, but had already left Japan by the time an official investigation began, the Yomiuri said.

Credit card records from the time showed it was "highly possible" that they visited Tokyo Disneyland during the trip, the report added.

The pair`s half-brother Jong-Nam, was deported from Japan in 2001 for trying to get into the country on a forged Dominican passport.

Jong-Nam, who is now 40, told immigration officials that he wanted to go to Tokyo Disneyland. The life of Kim Jong-Un, who was seemingly plucked from obscurity in a bid to maintain the Kim dynasty after his father suffered a debilitating stroke, is shrouded in mystery.

He is believed to be in his late 20s. The Yomiuri and some other media have put his age at 28 and that of Jong-Chul at 30.

PTI