This Man Received IDR 10 Billion Compensation After Being Imprisoned On Accusations Of North Korean Spy

Illustration. (Pexels/Ekaterina Bolovtsova)

JAKARTA - A man in South Korea earned 900 million won (IDR 10,327,349,565) as state compensation, after being convicted and jailed on spying charges more than five decades ago, before being released by the court, according to a government announcement on Monday.

The Seoul High Court in its October 4 decision ordered the state to pay 901.2 million won (Rp10,341,119,364) in compensation to Kim Shin-geun, 82, for wrong imprisonment or trial, according to the country's sheet.

Kim's sentence began 54 years ago, when Cambridge University professor Park No-soo, lawmaker Kim Gyu-nam and several others were convicted of spying for North Korea in a case known as "European espionage operations," the Korea Times reported October 14.

Kim, a 20-year-old graduate student at the University of Korea at the time, was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of contacting North Korean spy agents and giving espionage orders in 1966 while she was studying abroad in Cambridge, as part of an espionage case.

In 2022, Kim filed a review on spying charges. The court later released him, acknowledging his arrest and detention illegally and torture by the Central Intelligence Agency, which is now the National Intelligence Agency.

The court ruled that the evidence used in the verdict against Kim was illegal and the cancellation did not leave evidence that Kim pose a threat to the existence or security of the state. The decision was made in July.

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

The court at the time acknowledged they had been arrested illegally without a warrant and were forced to make statements through torture and threats, which effectively conclude their sentences were fabricated.