hankyoreh

A Seoul court on Tuesday acquitted eight South Koreans of treason, more than three decades after they were executed by hanging on conviction of trying to organize a subversive pro-North Korean body.

The Seoul Central District Court said the defendants were not guilty of forming an underground pro-communist group with the aim to overthrow the then authoritarian South Korean government of President Park Chung-hee.

The eight were among 23 college students and civic activists arrested on charges of violating South Korea's strict anti-Communist National Security Law amid a ruthless government crackdown on dissent.

The eight, including a Japanese language teacher and a construction company official, were executed in April, 1975, only 20 hours after the Supreme Court found them guilty of trying to rebuild what state prosecutors said was a disbanded pro-communist group called "inheyokdang," or "People's Revolutionary Party."

In December 2005, a Seoul court ordered a retrial of the case after a presidential advisory group concluded that the victims were tortured into making false confessions.

"The court found no evidence to prove the prosecution's claim that the accused had engaged in organized activities to overthrow the government at that time," presiding judge Moon Yong-sun said in issuing the acquittal.

The judge said the prosecution's investigation records "written when the accused were not free" also cannot be adopted as evidence.

Some bereaved family members of the victims cried when the "not guilty" verdict was read.

"I'm extremely happy because today's ruling lessened my suffering," said Lee Yeong-gyo, wife of late Ha Jae-wan, one of those executed. "It grieves me a lot when I think of my husband who is in heaven without knowing that he was found not guilty."

The defense lawyers and civic groups welcomed the new court ruling.

"Truth will win out in the long run," the groups said in a joint statement issued after the re-trial. "We welcome the decision which has judicially restored the victims' honor."

Relatives and friends had demanded a retrial for years, claiming that the case was fabricated by the then state intelligence agency that backed Park's dictatorship.

They also cited an internal probe by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), in which it admitted that its predecessor, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), had manipulated two cases involving Inhyeokdang.

Among other things, they cited that the KCIA arrested what it called key members of the party in 1964, labelling them as pro-Communists linked with North Korea. However, it released them shortly afterwards under strong protests from their families.

In its 2005 report, the NIS concluded that the so-called "party" was nothing but a student circle interested in pro-democracy movements and that a "committee for reconstructing the party" allegedly organized by the eight victims was non-existent.
Seoul, Jan. 23 (Yonhap News)