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09 Aug, 2025
The eight despots we love to hate - in pictures
Kim Jong-un, the Young Dictator of North Korea, has devised his own signature method of execution.
The most recent victim of the Anti-Aircraft Gun Firing Squad was his defence minister, Hyon Yong-Chol, who made the mistake of falling asleep in public.
North Korea's Army General Hyon Yong-chol
He previously had his uncle publicly humiliated and killed. But he has a long way to go before he matches the records of some of those who have gone before him.
di Amin of Uganda
Amin was perhaps the first Ruler for Life that the rest of the world took obvious enjoyment in hating.The former British Army cook was described by the American ambassador to Uganda as “racist, erratic and unpredictable, brutal, inept, bellicose, irrational, ridiculous, and militaristic".
His behaviour ranged from the grotesque - having prisoners beat each other to death with sledge-hammers - to buffoonery, such as his famous declaration that he was King of Scotland. He never bothered to disguise the reality - the mass disappearance of tens of thousands of people under his rule, and the expulsion of all Ugandan Asians. After his death, his son Jaffar defended him, saying he just wanted "to instil self-confidence in his people".
Emperor Bokassa of Central African Republic
Jean-Bédel Bokassa led a straightforward military coup against his cousin who had unwisely made him head of the armed forces, but then bankrupted the country by staging a lavish ceremony in which he was crowned emperor with a $5 million diamond-encrusted diadem. After being overthrown, he was convicted of numerous crimes, including the mass execution of children who failed to wear school uniforms made by his wife’s company, though he was acquitted on appeal of a charge of cannibalism.
Jean Bedel Bokassa became Emperor Bokassa after his coronation in 1977
The defence argued there was no proof that he had actually eaten the bodies seen hanging in his larder, though his security guard claimed to have cooked them for a variety of guests. One, reportedly, was President Giscard d'Estaing of France. His eventual death sentence was commuted to 20 years' imprisonment and he was released after serving only seven. He died in 1996, by which time he believed he was the 13th Apostle. He had 17 wives and 50 children.
General Stroessner of Paraguay
Son of a Bavarian immigrant, Alfredo Stroessner rose through the ranks of the army to seize power and rule for 35 years as the archetypal Latin American caudillo. He declared martial law immediately - renewing it every 90 days for 32 years - and won seven elections by suspiciously large majorities.
His security chief would occasionally make dissidents sit in a bath of excrement while he interrogated them. Others were thrown from planes, bound hand and foot. Gen Stroessner himself listened in by telephone as his enforcer dismembered a Communist Party leader alive by chainsaw.
Sergeant Doe of Liberia
Master Sergeant Samuel Doe made his mark almost immediately after leading the coup that brought him to power at the tender age of 29 in 1980. He rounded up the cabinet, and made them parade naked through the streets of Monrovia, before marching them to the beach where they were tied to stakes and shot.
A 27-year-old Samuel Doe with his mother Anna at Jalalat Village
The Daily Telegraph correspondent in Liberia, Brian Silk, who had on a previous occasion been driven at high speed around Lake Victoria by Idi Amin and who this time was “invited” to witness the mass execution, described it as an “an episode of extreme barbarity and bloodlust”.
His rule lasted ten years, before he was himself overthrown and captured. Prince Johnson, one of the coup leaders, personally oversaw Sgt Doe’s killing, allowing himself to be filmed drinking Budweiser as the former leader’s ears were cut off. Mr Johnson is now a senator in the upper house of the Liberian parliament.
Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan
Mr Niyazov was a humble Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic when the Central Asian region was unexpectedly granted its independence by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Changing his name to Turkmenbashi - Leader of All the Turkmens - he then set about devising a personality cult of extreme proportions.
Vladimir Putin (R) talks to Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov
He was officially said to have been born on the sacred Mt Paektu in the north of the country, with a swallow and a double-rainbow appearing in the sky to mark the event. Historians have recorded he was actually born in a refugee camp in Siberia during the Second World War.
North Koreans offer flowers to bronze statues of the country's late founder Kim Il Sung, left, and late leader Kim Jong Il at Mansudae in Pyongyang.
North Koreans offer flowers to bronze statues of the country's late founder Kim Il Sung, left, and late leader Kim Jong Il at Mansudae in Pyongyang.
Towns, hospitals, schools and even a meteorite were given the same name. September was named after his autobiography Ruhnama (The Book of the Soul), and reciting it became a key part of the school curriculum, replacing algebra.
Bottles of Vodka adorned with pictures of Saparmurat Niyazov
Hospitals outside the capital Ashgabad were closed. A gold statue of himself was built there, which rotated to follow the sun. When he died in 2006, he was followed by his designated successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who had been his dentist.
A Golden statue of President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov
Hospitals outside the capital Ashgabad were closed. A gold statue of himself was built there, which rotated to follow the sun. When he died in 2006, he was followed by his designated successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who had been his dentist.
A Golden statue of President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov
Col Gaddafi of Libya
For years Muammar Gaddafi was Britain’s favourite bugbear. His diplomats killed PC Yvonne Fletcher, he armed the IRA, he brought down airliners - most famously PanAm 103 over Lockerbie but also UTC772 from Chad to Paris. He stood for Arab Nationalism and socialism but he mainly stood for self-promotion. His “Little Green Book”, modeled on Mao’s Little Red one, held forth on the causes of everything, from world injustice to women’s menstrual cycles.
He lived largely in underground tunnels, or sleeping rough in the desert, to avoid American air strikes, and his preference for all-women bodyguard troops led to widespread legends of sexual debauchery. His sons were lavished with whatever they wanted - guns for Mutassem,a personal brigade of troops for Khamis, a football club for Saadi,and an LSE degree for Saif al-Islam.
Muammar Gaddafi surrounded by his female bodyguards
Saddam Hussein
A byword for despotism, he is perhaps best-remembered for the variety with which he inflicted mass suffering on the people unfortunate enough to be subject to his rule. He began by overseeing a videotaped meeting of Ba’ath Party bosses at which he slowly read out the names of 68 “plotters” present. The others were made to jeer the “guilty” as they stood up to be arrested, and were later forced personally to join in the firing squads.
Over subsequent years, he began a wholly unnecessary war with Iran in which more than a million people died; invaded Kuwait, only to be repulsed by an international alliance; and crushed uprisings by Shia and Kurds with hundreds of thousands more deaths. He was responsible for the most lethal use of chemical weapons in modern history, gassing thousands of Kurds in the so-called “Anfal campaign” of the late Eighties. Among the many executed by his death squads were his sons-in-law.
Kim Jong-il
It is doubtful that any of these predecessors were as influential on the young Kim Jong-un as his beloved father, Kim Jong-il. While the founder of the dynasty, Kim il-Sung, was a conventional Stalinist tyrant, who ruled over his country with the usual Communist excess for almost 50 years, his son Jong-il was a different kettle of fish - artistic, sensitive, and according to official accounts supremely gifted.
North Korea's Kim Jong-il in 1979
Myths accrued around him: that he could control the weather, that he had written 1,500 books, that he had scored 11 holes-in-one in his first game of golf. What is more certain is that he had his favourite South Korean film director kidnapped to make personal movies for him; travelled only by train, because he was scared of flying; and loved lobsters and expensive Cognac. Meanwhile, an estimated one million of his people starved to death.
He was officially said to have been born on the sacred Mt Paektu in the north of the country, with a swallow and a double-rainbow appearing in the sky to mark the event. Historians have recorded he was actually born in a refugee camp in Siberia during the Second World War.
North Koreans offer flowers to bronze statues of the country's late founder Kim Il Sung, left, and late leader Kim Jong Il at Mansudae in Pyongyang.
North Koreans offer flowers to bronze statues of the country's late founder Kim Il Sung, left, and late leader Kim Jong Il at Mansudae in Pyongyang.
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