Investigators reviewing suspicious deaths during the rule of past military-backed governments have said the controversial death of a dissident professor in 1973 was caused secret police.
The Presidential Committee on Suspicious Deaths said Monday that Tsche Chong-Kil, then law professor at the Seoul National University, had been tortured to death by investigators of then Korean CIA.
The commission, created by President Kim Dae-Jung who was a former dissident himself, said it had secured testimony from a former senior KCIA official, identified only as "Mr. A," on the true circumstances of Tsche's death.
"Judging from Mr. A's testimony, Professor Tsche was thrown from the seventh floor of a KCIA building after he fell into coma in the course of torture," the commission said.
"It has also been revealed that forensic analysis and all other related documents were fabricated," it said.
Following his death the KCIA announced that he committed suicide "because of guilt after he admitted to spying for communist North Korea."
But his relatives, colleagues and human rights activists said they never doubted that he had been tortured to death.
His wife and most of his closest relatives later immigrated to the United States to avoid harassment by KCIA agents.
The commission sent summonses to Lee Hu-Rak, the then KCIA head, but Lee is refusing to be questioned, citing health reasons.
Because of the statute of limitations, Lee and other KCIA agents could not be brought to justice, legal experts said -- AFP
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