hankyoreh

The movie The Attorney - which deals with late former president Roh Moo-hyun’s time as an attorney - passed the 10 million viewer mark, the tenth time a movie in Korea has accomplished that. Considering that the film addresses the life of a former president, assessments of it will vary according to one’s political views. The factual accuracy of the events depicted in the movie has become a hot topic, and it is not uncommon to hear people connected with the Burim Incident in 1981 - which serves as the backdrop of the film - to reminisce about their experiences. However, as interest in the movie increases, we regret to see figures with skeletons in their closets not only trying to justify their past actions but even attempting to twist the truth.

Speaking in an interview with the Hankyoreh about defendants’ claims that they had been tortured, Choi Byung-guk, the chief prosecutor in the Burim Case and a former lawmaker, said, “They insist that they were tortured, but they are doing that to cover up their own actions. During the investigation, I visited the anti-communist office where they were interrogated in Busan and asked the suspects whether they had been tortured. They told me that they had not.”

“Later, during the trial, the suspects claimed they had been tortured,” said Go Young-ju, a lawyer who took part in the investigation as a prosecutor, in an interview with an online newspaper. “During the investigation, they didn’t say even once that they had been tortured.”

“The [suspects in the] Burim Case were communist agents, and they are the roots of the pro-North Korea elements that we see today,” Go said.

Both of these individuals denigrate the movie and continue to deny the possibility that torture had been used to extract confessions in the case.

But the defendants in the case clearly remember the torture they suffered. “It started with sleep deprivation,” wrote Go Ho-seok, who brought a lawsuit in 2011 against the police officers he claims tortured him. “Then they hit every part of my body with a pickax handle and police truncheon. Sticking a pickax between my arms and legs, they hung me above a desk and beat me with the truncheon.”

Then there is the testimony of Lee Ho-cheol, former Blue House secretary for civil affairs, who was involved in the Burim Case (as well as the Hakrim Case). In his testimony, Lee recalls being tortured with electricity and being tied to a rack.

Kim Seong-su, who was a court secretary at the hearings, prepared the reports for the hearings in the Burim Trial. “[Go] must have sat next to the suspects who were nearly broken from their long incarceration,” Kim said after reading the interview with Go. “I find it inconceivable that he could not have known how harshly they had been treated.”

“Even now, I vividly recall the exclamations and tears in the courtroom gallery when Roh Moo-hyun brought the torture of the defendants to light,” Kim said.

One wonders about the ulterior motivations of the Chosun Ilbo, the conservative newspaper that disparaged the content of the movie using quotations from judges and public prosecutors who claimed that the movie was full of factual distortions and whitewashing. In the past, the newspaper had to pay damages to Roh Moo-hyun after a sister magazine ran reports slandering the former president, making it appear that he had spent time on a luxury yacht.

These claims are no more than cowardly excuses of people scared of the truth that the movie reveals.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]