hankyoreh

On Dec. 3, 1976, a man surnamed Yang (now 77 years old) on Jeju Island received a visit from two men who claimed to be employees from Jeju Provincial Office.

When the men told Yang that they needed some help preparing a report for President Park Chung-hee’s first inspection of Jeju Island, he went with them to help.

Their destination, Yang would soon discover, was not the Provincial Office, but rather the Jeju branch of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency’s (KCIA) anti-communist operations.

Yang was escorted into the basement, where public servants who had been so friendly until then suddenly showed their true colors. “Listen here, buddy, why didn’t you tell us that your brother is a member of Chongryon?” they asked brusquely. Chongryon, General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, is an organization of pro-North Korea ethnic Koreans in Japan.

Yang had been brought to the building without a warrant, and from that day forward he was subjected to beatings. He was transported to the basement of the KCIA’s headquarters on Namsan Mountain in Seoul, where the torture continued.

After telling Yang that he could not leave the room until he confessed, his interrogators stripped him down to his underwear and told him to write a confession. The light of the two massive lamps in the interrogation room was so bright that he could barely keep his eyes open.

The room was very hot, and water covered the floor. “There‘s an electric wire in the water,” they told him. “If you don’t cooperate, we‘ll use it to shock you.”

The interrogators would keep Yang awake for five or six days in a row. Every time he dozed off, they would prod him with wooden batons. It was not until he couldn’t stay awake even while being beaten that they let him sleep. When he answered their questions honestly, the interrogators would contradict him, cursing and threatening him.

As time went by, Yang grew weaker and felt that he should just give in to the demands of his interrogators. He got to the point where he simply agreed with whatever they accused him of having done.

Yang was soon transferred to Seodaemun Prison, where he had an interview with a prosecutor a few days later. When Yang told the prosecutor that the things he had confessed to the KCIA interrogators were not true, he was warned that if he denied the testimony he had given, he would be returned to the KCIA for further interrogation. Horrified at the thought of having to face more torture, he heeded the prosecutor’s warning.

In January of the next year, Yang was charged with fraternizing with Lee Bok-hyun, a member of the Chongryeon, classified as an anti-government organization, which was a violation of the National Security Law. Even in the courtroom, Yang was unable to deny that he had done this. Not even in the court could he say he had been tortured.

During his trial, no one mentioned the illegal activities that had taken place during his investigation. The following May, the Supreme Court confirmed Yang’s guilty verdict, sentencing him to 10 years in prison.

Yang requested a retrial in Dec. 2011, and this time he described in detail everything he had undergone. In August, the Seoul High Court exonerated him of the charges against him, finding adequate evidence for concluding that he had been illegally detained and subjected to torture and inhumane treatment.

On Nov. 24, the third division of the Supreme Court, with Hon. Min Il-yeong presiding, upheld the lower court’s not guilty verdict and rejected the prosecutors’ appeal.

By Lee Kyung-mi, staff reporter

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