Poet cleared of sedition charges after 39 years

By Kim Rahn

Poet Kim Ji-ha

A Seoul court cleared poet Kim Ji-ha of sedition charges in a re-trial, Friday, 39 years after he was sentenced to death by a court controlled by then-President Park Chung-hee in 1974.

Kim, who wrote poems that criticized Park’s dictatorship, was put behind bars for orchestrating a nationwide anti-government movement as a member of a student group.

Seoul Central District Court Friday found the 72-year-old poet not guilty of charges of sedition and violation of the National Security Law, brought against him in 1974.

At the time, the Park administration said that the student group plotted seditious acts on orders from North Korea and subsequently put 180 students on trial.

Kim was sentenced to death, but released 10 months later after an appeal for clemency from domestic and international democracy activists.

However, he was jailed again for writing an article ostensibly seeking to expose the truth about the case, and served six years in jail for this until his sentence was suspended following Park’s assassination.

A government truth commission concluded in 2005 that the Park administration manipulated the case to suppress the democracy movement. In 2010, Kim requested a re-trial, which was eventually accepted last October.