[Editorial] 17 Years Old Suspicious Death Revealed

The Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths announced three days ago that Park Young-Doo who died in Cheongsong Prison in 1984 was killed by the group assaults of the prison officers, not by heart failure which was then reported to the government authority. The Commission told that since Park was raising the human rights issue of the prison inmates, he was subjected to various forms of torture such as `wearing hairpin`, which caused his death.

This case has very significant meaning in the sense that this is the first case that the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths confirmed the `torture resulting in death` conducted by the governmental authority during the despotic regime.

The investigation on the Park`s death which began by the report of a prison guard last December, revealed Park`s mortified death and the concealment of the government authority just as they were. This shows how tragic and shameful the past situation of human rights of our country.

In fact, nobody can view as a law enforcement by the power of state, a series of events in which Park was arrested by the martial law enforcement army, and was finally killed in Cheongsong Prison. Park was taken to the `Samchong Training Camp` just because he looked like a rogue, moved to the detention house of the army and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Furthermore, he was tortured to death as he requested `the humanitarian treatment to the prisoners`.

However, despite that regime has been charged a couple of times since then, 4 prison guards and the supervisors who were responsible for Park`s death have maintained their offices. After Park`s death, the fellow prison inmates had tried to make public the truth about Park’s death by using every conceivable means such as a collective commotion, but all their efforts amounted to nothing. And the prosecutor`s office kept ignoring the charge of the prisoners.

The suspicious deaths during the military regime cannot be confined to Park`s case alone. There have been the cases of disappearance as well as the cases with unconvincing causes of deaths. The Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths was launched by the mournful petitions of the bereaved families, and currently the Commission is conducting the investigations on about 80 suspicious deaths including the case of prof. Choi Jong-Kil (Seoul National University) who died in the National Intelligence Service in 1973.

Although the statute of limitation for prosecution already passed, the truth of suspicious deaths should be clearly revealed in order to place the violation of human rights by the despotic regime in the history. Therefore, the special law for the examination of suspicious deaths needs to be revised to strengthen the power of the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths.

Above all, the period of investigation is very short. Currently, the law prescribes that the primary investigation should be completed within six months, and if necessary it can be extended for additional three months. But the Commission who does not possess the right of confiscation and search can hardly accomplish the investigation on the cases that are fading away into the history within 9 months.