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An appeals court on Tuesday held the state responsible for the death of Prof. Tsche Chong-kil under questioning by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in 1973. The court ordered the government to compensate the family of the academic, who fell under never-explained circumstances from the window of a seventh-floor interrogation room at the age of 42 during a trumped-up campaign by the secret services to weed out North Korean spies.
The Seoul High Court, citing ¡°exceptional circumstances,¡± overruled a lower-court dismissal of the case brought by Tsche¡¯s family on the grounds that the statute of limitations has expired. It was the first time the state has been held accountable in a private suit over an ¡°unsolved death¡± under past authoritarian governments. The ruling opens a legal door for other victims¡¯ families.
The court ordered the government to pay W184 million in punitive damages. It upheld the lower-court¡¯s ruling that an investigator identified as Cha, who in an interview claimed Tsche confessed to being a North Korean spy, was guilty of defamation and ordered him to pay W20 million (US$20,000) in damages.
¡°Even though the statute of limitations has expired, the circumstances of Tsche¡¯s family must be taken into account,¡± the bench said in its ruling. The family ¡°was in no position to discover the truth about the professor¡¯s death¡± until the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths published findings that the KCIA carefully manipulated and covered up such cases. In such exceptional cases the argument that the statute of limitations has expired cannot be accepted, it said. That in effect stops the government from citing the statute of limitations in cases where a systematic cover-up followed abuse of power and defamation by government agencies.
The court accepted that Prof. Tsche died either as a result of torture by KCIA investigators or in the act of trying to escape further abuse, or was thrown out of the window by agents who thought the unconscious academic was dead.
The academic¡¯s son, Prof Tsche Gwang-jun of Kyunghee University, expressed relief. ¡°I thank the court from the bottom of my heart for reminding us of the eternal truth that justice will prevail,¡± he said. He vowed to donate the compensation except legal costs for use as scholarships and grants for research on human rights. He said he would also like to ¡°end a long feud¡± by visiting the National Intelligence Agency, the KCIA¡¯s successor.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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