Former opposition party leader posthumously acquitted

A former pro-democracy activist and opposition politician was posthumously acquitted in a retrial Friday, 37 years after he was imprisoned for campaigning against the military-backed regime led by then President Park Chung-hee.

The Seoul High Court found Kim Cheol, the late head of the opposition Reunification Socialist Party, not guilty of violating a now-defunct emergency decree enforced by the late Park to suppress the pro-democracy movement and an anti-Communist law.

The court also apologized to Kim's bereaved family for the "disgraceful" decision by the state.

"We make an apology on behalf of the law enforcement authority to Kim's family members who must have suffered much mental, political and social distress so far," the justice said.

In 1976, Kim was sentenced to two years in prison for distributing to the media copies of a written arraignment for a key party official who had been unjustly detained for violating the anti-Communist law a year earlier.

The decision of acquittal was made in line with a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court earlier this year that three of the nine emergency decrees issued by Park were unconstitutional, as they "excessively limited and infringed upon the people's basic rights."

Kim Han-gil, one of Kim's sons, was overwhelmed by the court's decision and apology.

"I couldn't control my emotion upon hearing the apology from the court," said the younger Kim.

"I thought, 'Now I have come to hear this word for the first time in 37 years,' and, 'My father's fight was never useless.'"

The 60-year-old, who is the current leader of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), vowed to succeed his father's struggle for democracy, saying the reality of Korean politics remains dim, although much progress has been made in recent decades.  

Known as a pioneer of South Korea's pro-democracy movement, the late Kim led the foundation of the Reunification Socialist Party in 1961.

He ran in the 1971 presidential election but withdrew his candidacy to help former President Kim Dae-jung -- who was then a presidential candidate from another opposition party -- have a better chance at winning the election. Kim lost to Park, although he went on to win the country's top elected seat in the 1997 poll.

He served a five-year term. (Yonhap News)