3 Korean-Japanese men absolved of spying charges

By Yi Whan-woo

In a retrial 28 years after they were handed prison sentences three Korean-Japanese men were finally absolved of spying charges Thursday. One, surnamed Park, served ten years behind bars while the other two were detained for three years.

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision that the three were not guilty of breaking the National Security Law.

The court acknowledged their claims that officers of the military intelligence command illegally detained the Korean-Japanese and tortured them into making false confessions that they had spied for North Korea.

“The court regards their testimony back then as lacking credibility and it should not have been accepted as evidence as their words came after illegal detention and torture by military intelligence officers,” a judge said.

The case was brought back to court when Park filed a petition with the Trust and Reconciliation Commission to review the 1984 court ruling that convicted him and two others of spying.

The independent commission was formed in 2005 to fight for the human rights of those who were victimized by the military governments of the 1970s and ‘80s.

Park, now 56, asked the commission in 2006 to help him prove his innocence.

In 1984 he was charged with espionage for contacting two members of a pro-North Korean group in Japan and found guilty.

The two others, now aged 72 and 67, were also tried and sentenced on similar charges.

The commission discovered that the military detained the three men for 40 days before the trial and tortured them to confess that they had spied for the Stalinist regime.

The commission called for a retrial and in December 2010 the Seoul High Court found the three men not guilty. This ruling was upheld Thursday.