January 13, 2011
SEOUL (AFP) - A Seoul court on Thursday awarded three former dissidents and their families some $6.3 million in damages for their suffering from false subversion charges under a past authoritarian government.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered the government to pay the compensation to the victims of the "false" charges fabricated through "unlawful means including torture".
Lee Gang-Chul and two others were arrested in 1974 for allegedly planning to start a riot to topple then President Park Chung-Hee's authoritarian regime.
They were said to have taken orders from an "underground" communist network in South Korea and a pro-Pyongyang group in Japan.
The three were sentenced to 15 years in jail in 1975. Lee served more than seven years and the two others served 33 months and 11 months respectively before being released on parole.
Lee later served as a presidential aide under the administration of the late President Roh Moo-Hyun, after South Korea restored democracy.
"Investigators extracted false confessions through overnight questioning, torture and threats. They were also found guilty because of false or flimsy evidence," the court said in a statement.
The then Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) played a leading role in fabricating false charges against the dissidents, the statement said.
The victims and 28 of their family members sought a retrial at the recommendation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a committee established to investigate past human rights abuses.
They filed a damage suit last year against the government, seeking 8.3 billion won ($7.4 million).
