Graduate Student Involved in Tonghyeokdang Case Acquitted in Retrial After 57 Years

"Confessions Obtained Through Unlawful Detention and Forced Custody... Inadmissible as Evidence"

A man who had been convicted under the Anti-Communism Act for his involvement in the Revolutionary Party for Reunification (Tonghyeokdang) case as a graduate student was acquitted in a retrial after 57 years. The Tonghyeokdang case was a public security incident announced by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) in August 1968, claiming to have uncovered an underground organization acting under North Korean orders.

Seoul High Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News Agency

According to the legal community on October 6, the Seoul High Court’s Criminal Division 16-2 (Presiding Judge Lee Kyunghoon) overturned the original ruling and pronounced a not-guilty verdict in the retrial of Mr. A, who had been indicted for violating the National Security Act and the Anti-Communism Act. The court decided to publicly announce the summary of its ruling.

Mr. A was indicted in June 1966, when he was a graduate student, after being introduced to Mr. C by his fellow student Mr. B, for organizing an ‘activity group’ (a small collective formed as in North Korea) and forming an anti-state organization. He was also accused of making and distributing around 100 leaflets at a June 1967 meeting presided over by Mr. C, protesting the parliamentary election fraud and opposing the arrival of foreign envoys for the presidential inauguration. Additional charges were brought for receiving propaganda materials praising North Korea from Mr. C and failing to report Mr. C to the authorities.

The court of first instance, on January 25, 1969, sentenced Mr. A to seven years in prison and seven years' disqualification from civil rights. The second instance, on May 26 of the same year, handed down a sentence of two years in prison, suspended for three years, with two years’ disqualification from civil rights, and this verdict was finalized.

Mr. A filed for a retrial in October last year. The court, citing Article 420, Clause 7 of the Criminal Procedure Act—which permits retrials when judicial police officers involved in an investigation have committed crimes related to their duties—decided to commence retrial proceedings in August this year.

The issue was the admissibility of evidence such as Mr. A’s handwritten statement and interrogation records from the Central Intelligence Agency. The KCIA officer’s arrest report claimed that Mr. A had been detained at his residence at 6 a.m. on July 28, 1968. However, the report’s date of creation was entered as the previous day, July 27. The dates on Mr. A’s handwritten statements were also listed as “July 1968” or “July 27, 1968.”

The court stated, “Mr. A was detained before July 27 and interrogated in custody until a warrant was issued on July 30. This constitutes unlawful forced detention and custody that did not meet the requirements for voluntary accompaniment or emergency arrest, violating due process and the principle of warrant-based detention.”

Furthermore, the court deemed that confessions made to the KCIA were obtained under conditions that could induce or force false testimony, thus rendering them involuntary. It also concluded that the lack of voluntariness persisted during the prosecution’s investigation stage, and therefore the prosecution’s interrogation records could not be admitted as evidence.

The court found that the remaining evidence was insufficient to prove a crime. Regarding the activity group charges, the court stated, “Beyond simply meeting several times with Mr. B and Mr. C to discuss social realities, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Mr. A organized an anti-state activity group.” The court further explained, “Producing leaflets, etc., appears to be an objective act of protesting election fraud.”

As for the receipt of propaganda materials from Mr. C, the court found, “This seems to be for academic research purposes or mere intellectual curiosity. It is difficult to consider this as posing a concrete and clear risk to the existence or security of the state, or to the basic order of liberal democracy.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.