Presidential Truth Commission On Suspicious Deaths investigator K, who spent four year in prison for spying, called nine military commanders over the rank of battalion commander -- including a former defense minister -- for investigation. He also sent demands that Defense Security Command Commanding General Song Young-keun attend hearings on five occasions. H, another investigator who spent eight years in prison for being a member of the South Korean Socialists' Labor Union, was involved in investigating the Private Heo Won-geun death, and directly investigated 1st ROK Army Commander Jeong Su-seong.
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Conservative civic groups scuffle with police as they demand the dissolution of the Presidential Truth Commission On Suspicious Deaths / Heo Yeong-han
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Since the launch of the truth commission in 2000, it has investigated 150 Defense Security Command officials alone, and called for questioning serving and former officials from national security agencies like the military, police and intelligence services. Even though there are no legal problems with former spies and socialist labor unionists like K acting as investigators if they've been pardoned or rehabilitated, current and former high-ranking military officials who belatedly learned of the investigators' backgrounds said they felt hurt.
Investigator K spent four years in prison on charges of being recruited by a North Korean spy in Japan and conducting espionage activities like turning over military secrets gathered in the South to North Korea in return for 600,000 yen. He was released from prison in 1997, when his sentence expired. Soon after he was released, he was pardoned and rehabilitated by Kim Dae-jung in 1998, and joined the truth commission last July. He was charged with investigating the Choe On-sun death, which occurred in the military in 1983. According the commission materials, K demanded the attendance of 11 commanders over the rank of battalion commander, and nine were subpoenaed. These included former Defense Minister Lee Jun, former operational commander of the Joint Chiefs Yeo Un-geon and former lawmaker Pak Se-hwan. For that incident, K investigated 35 serving and reservist soldiers. In particular, K sent attendance requests to Defense Security Command commander Song five times between March 9 and May 25; he stopped doing so in accordance with official protests from DSC. A Defense Ministry official said that K's request included threats to bring the military officials in forcefully if they didn't accede to questioning.
H, who investigated the Private Heo case, was imprisoned for eight years from 1990 on charges of having served as the liaison officer of the South Korean Socialists' Labor Union. He was released when his term finished. In 2000, he was pardoned and rehabilitated, immediately after which he joined the truth commission as a civilian (non-official) investigator. The Private Heo investigation team has investigated about 20 military officials up till now, including 1st ROK Army commander Jeong. Jeong has served as the head of the Defense Ministry's special investigation team created in 2002 to discover the facts behind Heo's death. Between 2000 and 2002, the first truth commission called for questioning 4,603 people, of which 4.087 were directly investigated.
(Im Min-hyeok, lmhcool@chosun.com )
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