Chun Doo-hwan attends court hearing for libel suit over Gwangju Massacre

Former President Chun Doo-hwan leaves the Gwangju District Court after attending an appellate court hearing in a defamation case, Monday. The 90-year-old was earlier sentenced to eight months in prison suspended for two years by a lower court last November on charges of defaming the late Catholic priest Cho Pius in his memoir by denying his eyewitness account of the military's brutal suppression of the May 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy movement, and calling him a liar. Yonhap

By Jung Da-min

Former President Chun Doo-hwan attended an appellate court hearing on a defamation case at the Gwangju District Court in Gwangju, Monday, after having failed to show up for two previous hearings since June.

Chun's lawyers had earlier told the court that he would not attend another hearing but later said he had changed his mind after the court warned that there could be consequences in future proceedings if he continued refusing to attend. During his lower court trial, he appeared only three times, citing health reasons.

Chun left his house in Seoul in the morning wearing a gray suit. He looked thinner than he had appeared nine months earlier when he attended the hearing at the lower court for sentencing.

Some YouTubers waiting in front of the house asked him when he would apologize to the public for his brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju, but he did not respond, just getting into a car. Last November when he was heading for Gwangju for a lower court hearing, he responded to such questions by yelling at people in front of his house, “Watch your mouth!”

At the latest hearing, he dozed off, just as he had done in a lower court hearing in April last year. The hearing finished after only 25 minutes when his wife, who accompanied him, told the judge that Chun was having difficulty breathing, so the judge allowed him to leave.

The next hearing is scheduled to be held Aug. 30.

The 90-year-old, who served as president from 1980 to 1988, was indicted in May 2018 on charges that his controversial memoir, published in April 2017, defamed the late Catholic priest Cho Pius, also known as Cho Chul-hyun, by denying his eyewitness account of the military's brutal suppression of the May 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy movement. Cho's family members filed the suit.

In the memoir, Chun described Cho as a “shameless liar” and “Satan wearing a mask” for describing gunfire from helicopters on pro-democracy demonstrators in the city in May 1980.

The lower court found that there were reasonable grounds to conclude that Chun was aware of the helicopter attacks on May 21 and 27 of that year during the bloody military suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in the city. It sentenced Chun to eight months in prison suspended for two years. The prosecution appealed, saying the sentence was “too light,” and Chun also lodged an appeal.

Before the hearing, members of May 18 Memorial Foundation, as well as other organizations of surviving victims and family members of dead victims, held a protest in front of the court, demanding stern punishment for Chun.

They said Chun keeps refusing to reflect on his atrocities, barely attending any of the court hearings on the libel case and not attending hearings in a separate civil case.

“The court should not guarantee Chun's right to defend himself too much. We can't tolerate the hearings being carried out according to his wishes,” they said during the protest.