hankyoreh

By Song Gyung-hwa
　
The Supreme Court has handed down a not-guilty verdict in an appeal of a retrial case of a man who spent time in prison after unfairly being accused of being a spy. The ruling is significant as the first not-guilty verdict handed down by the Supreme Court in several cases brought to the Court by prosecutors. Since the start of the Lee Myung-bak administration, prosecutors have broken with usual practice by appealing not-guilty verdicts in retrials of spy cases.
The Third Division of the Supreme Court confirmed a not-guilty verdict Monday in the retrial of Kim Seong-gyu, 70, Oh Ju-seok, 77, Song Seok-min, 60, and Ahn Gyo-do, 68, who were charged with engaging in espionage activity after being won over by a North Korean agent with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
In the decision, the Court said the original decision, that evidence regarding the voluntary nature of the suspects’ questioning was insufficient, was appropriate.
In June, Seoul High Court ruled that the defendants were forced to memorize their testimony after being tortured, the men forced to crouch with a piece of wood inserted behind their knees and being suspended between desks with their hands and feet tied to billy clubs. It also found that their recorded confession was memorized. The court ruled that their questioning had no capacity as evidence, and ruled them innocent. They were momentarily overjoyed by the retrial ruling, which came about 30 years after their original trial, but prosecutors, unhappy with the decision, appealed exactly one week later.
The men, who did not know each other and lived ordinary lives - one was a high school teacher, and another was a businessman - were accused of being spies after visiting relatives in Japan or going to Japan for business in 1983. They were dragged off to the Agency for National Security Planning and tortured. In their first trial, they were sentenced to life in prison. On appeal, their sentence was only slightly shortened. The Supreme Court confirmed their sentence in 1984.
This decision is noteworthy as it is the first not-guilty confirmation in an appeal filed by prosecutors following a not-guilty verdict in a retrial. Breaking with past practice, prosecutors appealed the decision by the Court. The prosecutors appealed again for other reasons, different from the not-guilty verdict, like that the court handing down the original decision ignored torture claims by the defendants and that the defendants at the time agreed to the evidence. As a result, they have earned criticism that they are further wounding those found innocent decades after they were unfairly convicted.
Choe Yang-jun, 71, who was also found not-guilty in a retrial in January after being found guilty of spying in 1983 after allegedly being won over by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, was found not guilty again by Seoul High Court in April when prosecutors appealed. His case now awaits a decision by the Supreme Court, where it was sent on appeal. Jang Seok-gu, 48, who was imprisoned after being found guilty in 1974 of hiding a person involved in the Inhyeokdang Incident, was found innocent in a retrial 35 years later, but his case also sits before the Supreme Court after a series of appeals by prosecutors. Kim Cheol, 71, who was also found innocent after being convicted of spying 20 years ago, also awaits a final decision by the Supreme Court.
　　
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