Photo of Kim Jong-il’s Heir Apparent at Age of 16 Unveiled

A new photo of Kim Jeong-un, 26, who has emerged as the heir apparent to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, has been unveiled in a Japanese newspaper.

On the front page of Monday edition, the Mainichi Shimbun said that the photo shows him in his 16 years, when he attended a public school as seventh grader in Berne, Switzerland.

He is one of his classmates in a group photo, which is confirmed to have been taken in June, 1999, the news paper said. He wears a black round T-shirt and a gold-color necklace with his hair cut short.

So far his only photo circulated is of 11 years old.

The newspaper added that he attended the school as a false name of "Park Un."

He stayed in Berne from summer 1996 to January 2001, where he moved from Berne International School where his brother Jeong-cheol, now at 28, learned, according to diplomatic sources.

According to his middle school records, he got enrolled as the seventh grader, equivalent to one grader of middle school in Korea, in August, 1998, after receiving extra lesson for German language during his primary school days. He quit the school in late 2000, when he was a ninth grader.

He never aoppeared at school one day after he said in a teachers room he 'would return to home country tomorrow,' the Japanese daily quoted a teacher in charge of Jeong-un at the school then saying.

Earlier, Asahi TV unveiled a grown-up photo of Jong-un, resembling his father, which was immediately denied by a Korean in his 40s, showing his photo. The Asahi photo was from it.

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