hankyoreh

chief of Seoul’s Yangcheon district

By Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporter

A Seoul district chief had his election annulled and put under court custody for involvement in torture while working as a Defense Security Command (DSC) investigator in the 1980s.

Chu Jae-yeop is currently in his third term as chief of Seoul’s Yangcheon district.

The 11th division of Seoul Nambu District Court, under judge Kim Gi-yeong, sentenced Chu to three months in prison for violating the Public Official Election Act by spreading falsehoods and one year in prison for perjury and false accusations. Chu was taken into court custody after the ruling.

First elected Yangcheon district chief in 2002 after being nominated by the Grand National Party (now the New Frontier Party), Chu was elected to a third term in a by-election last October.

His involvement in torture first surfaced as a major issue in the June 2010 local elections. Lee Je-hak, another candidate in the race for the district chief seat, released a press release on his rival in which he claimed that Chu “took part in torture during his time working at the DSC in order to frame Korean-Japanese Yu Ji-gil and others as spies.” Chu responded by filing an accusation against Lee for violating the Public Official Election Act by spreading falsehoods.

At the time, Chu testified in court that he had “never tortured the Korean-Japanese Yu Ji-gil nor been present when the torture took place.”

Lee went on to win the election, but stepped down after the Supreme Court upheld a 2.5 million won fine against him. Last October, Chu ran again in the by-election to choose a new district chief.

Then another Korean-Japanese, Kim Byeong-jin, 57, held a press conference to say he had personally witnessed Chu torturing Yu, 70. Chu responded to the charges by sending a text message to his constituents essentially accusing Kim of lying after evading punishment for informing on a fellow spy.

Kim, who was himself a torture victim, filed an accusation over Chu’s previous testimony and text message. Prosecutors proceeded to indict Chu for violating the Public Official Election Act, perjury, and false accusations.

In its ruling, the court said Yu and Kim’s accounts of Chu torturing Yu were credible, since both of them gave explicit descriptions of the circumstances of torture at the time and “had no reason for harboring ill will toward the defendant.”

It also said Chu deserved “severe punishment, in consideration of the fact that the defendant showed no remorse for his misdeed and denied the act, despite torture being a serious violation of the law.”

The court explained its decision to put Chu under court custody by saying that it could no longer maintain the principle of presumed innocence and expressing concern that he might flee during the appeal process, given the nature of the crime.

Chu responded to the sentencing by telling the court it was “too harsh,” to which the judge replied, “You yourself know whether you did in fact commit torture. The court made its decision based on what it considered rational according to the evidence submitted and the principles of the law.”

Chu entered politics in 1991 as a member of the Seoul Metropolitan Council’s expert committee following his discharge from the DSC. He served as administrative chief of the United Liberal Democrats spokesperson’s office and a policy research committee member at the National Assembly secretariat before taking on the position of GNP deputy spokesman in 2001. From there, he went on to serve his three terms as district chief.

Kim Byeong-jin, the figure who revealed Chu’s past involvement in torture and reported him to prosecutors, told the Hankyoreh in a phone interview that he was “relieved to see something done to address this wrong to the torture victims and their family members.”

In 1983, Kim, then a graduate student at Yonsei University, was framed by authorities as a Korean-Japanese spy and tortured by the DSC. The DSC coerced Kim, who is fluent in Japanese, into working for two years as a specially hired civilian worker for the military in exchange for charges not being pressed.

In 1985, he witnessed the torture of Yu, serving as interpreter while Chu and other DSC investigators carried it out. Kim recalled the investigators stripping Yu naked and hanging him from a bar. In particular, he described Chu applying a wet towel to Yu’s face and using a kettle to pour water mixed with red pepper over it.

Kim, who now resides in the Japanese city of Sakai, said he was “dismayed to see Chu still brazenly refusing to admit his misdeed.”

Yu, the torture victim, now lives in Okayama. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

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