WASHINGTON (TIP): The United States on July 6 sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, citing “notorious abuses of human rights,” in a move that diplomats say will incense the nuclear-armed country, reports AFP.

The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within US jurisdiction and extend to 10 other individuals and five government ministries and departments, the US treasury department said in a statement.

The sanctions place those officials on a blacklist making them radioactive to major financial institutions and companies while freezing any assets they may already have in US banks.

“Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,” Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J Szubin said in the statement.

In North Korea, the leader is the subject of state-mandated adulation and considered infallible.