Tortured and imprisoned as a spy 54 years ago, 82-year-old man wins $665,000 payout for wrongful conviction

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Tortured and imprisoned as a spy 54 years ago, 82-year-old man wins $665,000 payout for wrongful conviction

Published: 14 Oct. 2024, 10:17

Seoul High Court [YONHAP]

A man has been awarded nearly 900 million won ($665,000) in state compensation after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned on spy charges more than five decades ago and recently acquitted by a court, a government gazette showed Monday.

The Seoul High Court made a decision on Oct. 4, ordering the state to pay 901.2 million won in compensation to 82-year-old Kim Shin-geun for wrongful imprisonment or trial, according to the gazette.

Kim's conviction dates back to 54 years ago, when University of Cambridge law professor Park No-soo, sitting lawmaker Kim Gyu-nam and several others were convicted of spying for North Korea in a case known as the "European espionage operation."

Kim, a graduate school student in his 20s at Korea University at the time, was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of contacting a North Korean spy agent and delivering an espionage order in 1966 during his studies abroad at Cambridge, as part of the espionage case.

In 2022, Kim filed for a retrial of his spy conviction, and a court subsequently acquitted him, recognizing his illegal arrest and detention as well as the torture used by the Central Intelligence Agency, now the National Intelligence Service.

The court ruled that evidence used in Kim's conviction was illegal and its nullification left no proof that Kim posed any threat to the state's existence or security. The ruling was finalized in July.

Earlier in 2015, the Supreme Court also acquitted the professor and the lawmaker, both of whom were convicted and executed in 1972, in a retrial filed by their families.

The court at the time recognized that they had been illegally arrested without warrants and forced to make statements through torture and threats, effectively concluding that their conviction was fabricated.

Yonhap