There should be no statute of limitations for crimes committed by the state.
On the 22nd, SBS 'The Tale of the Day Biting the Tail Season 2' (hereinafter 'Kkokomu 2'), with the subtitle 'Forced Silence and Secret Notes: Korea's Mysterious History No. 1', was the subject of the death of Professor Choi Jong-gil, the first Korean mysterious history. illuminated about
On this day's broadcast, Kim Eun-hee, Lee Yi-kyung, and Code Kunst appeared as story friends and listened to the story of the day told by the trio of Jang. And on that day, Jang Hang-jun said, "He's a world-class star. He's really hard to find," when his wife, Eun-hee Kim, appeared on that day, and made everyone laugh by explaining that he was "a world-class master born in Okin-dong, Jongno-gu, Korea's Agatha Christie."
The friendly atmosphere became serious as the story of the day began. The story focused on a 27-year-old man who came to the Severance Psychiatric Ward at Yonsei University in Seoul on October 25, 1973.
Choi Jong-sun (27), who came to his senses, secretly asked his best friend, a resident of the hospital, to bring him a pen and notebook, and also asked him to be admitted to a psychiatric ward, raising doubts.
In response, his best friend drew attention by revealing that he had chosen to be admitted to a psychiatric ward to be protected from the people at his workplace. And every deep night, Mr. Jongsun put on a blanket to avoid people's eyes and wrote something desperately in his notebook.
He said, "I chose this place as the best place to write this article. The most urgent thing for me right now is to vividly leave today's regret about my brother's death for future generations." This is my will without any pretense,” he began the 98-page note. And his writings contained great secrets that could turn the world upside down.
It wasn't until ten days ago that I knew what the secret was. In fact, Jongseon was an elite agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. He passed the senior court recruitment examination in 1972, and was working in the courtroom's inspectorate's office.
And he had recently brought his brother to his office, Namsang Court, when another agent requested the cooperation of his older brother, Professor Choi Jong-gil. Jongseon, who thought it was a simple matter of cooperation. However, the meeting between Jong-gil and Jong-seon was the last.
His brother Jong-gil's ID, which he had left at the access control center, remained there for several days, and Jong-sun had an intuition that something was going on. So, he went to the chief of the Inspection Office and asked for Mr. Jong-gil to be released. And three days later, the inspector general tells Jong-seon to wait in the watch office by 7 am.
Jong-sun rushed to the watch office immediately. To him, the head of the Inspection Office continued to mention stories about his brother Jong-gil, and he said, "Professor Choi confessed to his espionage at 1:30 this morning and committed suicide by jumping on the 7th floor." At one point, he felt threatened and confessed, and after taking him to the bathroom, he claimed that he
threw himself there.The story of Mr. Jong-gil, who was the most affectionate head of a family and a good person to friends, colleagues and students, is a spy. Jong-sun's story was completely unbelievable,
and Jong-sun asked him to show the scene of the incident, but the courthouse concluded that it was better not to show the scene to his family because the scene was so miserable, and the body was sent to the National Forensic Service immediately. secretly visited the scene in a strange atmosphere, and there were no traces left, let alone preservation of the site, raising suspicion of the manipulation of the
incident
.
And around 30 years after the incident, a photo of the scene kept by the courthouse was released. Professor Choi's collapsed appearance. Story who saw this. Friends said that the condition of the body was strange, and raised suspicions that the body was moved rather than a suicide attempt. In
response, Jung-eun Jung forced Jong-seon to attend an autopsy. It is called cooperation so that there is no word that they killed each other and concealed themselves, and if the court does not cooperate until the end, they will call in Jong-seon as well as everyone around Professor Choi to investigate and threaten their safety.
Jong-sun asked, "Don't frame your brother as a traitor, don't impose ideological restrictions on him. Don't touch fellow professors and students." He asked the chief of the Central Committee to guarantee this condition in writing. In response, the court said that he would grant the condition, but that it would not be possible to write, but instead said, "Dear Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, as the family of Choi Jong-gil, who betrayed the country, we were well aware that he was a spy. Although he betrayed his country and had no remorse It is a humiliating and embarrassing petition, saying, "I hate and resent the man who ultimately took his own life because he couldn't overcome it, but what is the sin of the living family. Please take pity on our surviving family, forgive us, protect us, and allow our descendants to live a bright life." made the signature of
The blood spurted upside down, but there was no other way, so Jong-sun, who signed the signature, went to visit his brother-in-law the next day, and only then told him the whole situation. And his brother-in-law signs a petition to protect the children.
In response, Jong-sun gave permission to participate in the autopsy of the body. However, Professor Choi's lawyer and doctor also requested that the autopsy be carried out together, but this was ignored, and the court proceeded with the autopsy without the consent of the family.
Jong-gil, who could not even say goodbye to his family, held a funeral the next day. The family had to spend a small and lonely funeral in a situation in which no burial place could be prepared under the pressure of the court, and it was impossible to attend the funeral except for immediate family members.
And four days later, something shocking happens. The media unanimously reported the discovery of a large-scale spy group based in Europe. And at the forefront of this was Choi Jong-gil, a professor at Seoul National University, who confessed to being a spy in the courthouse and committed suicide by jumping from a window while being investigated for a female crime.
Concerned that this would escalate into an anti-government movement in the context of raising suspicions about Professor Choi's death, the court said that it had reported the news of the discovery of the spies as a way to silence public opinion, but Jong-sun's sense of betrayal was beyond imagination. Jong-sun, shocked by this story, was taken to the hospital by an ambulance, and that was the psychiatric ward that was first mentioned that day.
Against the courthouse, who didn't know what to do, he recorded everything he saw and heard in the courthouse, and in the hopes that this record would one day prove to be the truth, he imprisoned himself for two weeks and wrote down notes.
And, in the last verse of the memoir, he said, "I decided to return to the tiger's den within them. No matter what insults, whatever hardships I go through, I will remain there until I can remain in them. Find the truth of my brother's death, find evidence of murder and manipulation, and find a murder investigator. Get down. I will remain in them and I will not stop the pain in their hearts who killed my brother. I will not wake up from the nightmare of murder." The fact that the older brother is a spy and the younger brother is a court agent was something that was not easily understood. In response, Jong-sun said that the fact that he was a court agent was proof that his brother was not a spy, and made himself a witness.
A year after Professor Choi's death, his wife received a secret message. It is said that Professor Choi's 1st anniversary mass will be held at Myeongdong Cathedral under the title 'Torches in the Darkness'.
Choi's wife avoided the eyes of the courthouse and headed to Myeong-dong Cathedral, and was moved by the thought that she was no longer alone as she saw the multitude of people gathered there. In particular, the situation at that time was difficult to the extent that the priests who held the mass risked their lives to hold the mass, and the bereaved families were more moved by this.
Father Ham Se-woong, the Catholic priests for the realization of justice, hosted the mass on this day. And a few days later, Mr. Jong-sun came to him and told him about his memoirs. You don't know when you'll be discovered, so you ask him to keep his handbook until that day comes. Therefore, the priest who took the lead in criticizing the regime at the time entrusted it to a reliable nun, who entrusted it to another nun, and the nun attracted attention by keeping it in a salt jar.
And everyone held their breath and waited. On October 26, 1979, the day the dictatorship collapsed due to the death of Park Chung-hee, voices demanded to disclose the truth of Professor Choi Jong-gil's death. Jong-sun was also scheduled to reveal his handwriting. However, this was delayed again due to the new military's seizure of power shortly thereafter.
After another seven years passed, and as the citizens' resistance for democratization grew stronger, Jong-seon's memoirs were finally published 15 years after the incident. Shortly after, the prosecution announced the results of the re-investigation, and the prosecution concluded that there was no evidence anywhere that Professor Choi was a spy. However, there was no evidence to determine whether he was murdered or committed suicide, and the prosecution closed the case 15 years after the incident with no right of prosecution.
10 years after that, the Committee for Investigation of Suspicious Photographs was appointed, and Choi's fellow professors and students submitted a complaint to ask for another investigation, and at the center was Choi's son Choi Jong-sun, who followed his father's path. Professor Choi's son, who had originally dreamed of becoming a painter, decided to follow his father's path instead of him after his father's death and followed the path that the real Professor Choi walked.
The start of the re-investigation revealed surprising facts. At that time, a witness who had seen Professor Choi appeared. In particular, his testimony revealed that Professor Choi was tortured. Also, belatedly, the opinion of a forensic scientist on the numerous wounds and bruises in the autopsy photos of Professor Choi was revealed.
The court claims that the injury was caused by a collision when the fall occurred, but forensic scientists say, "When the heart stops, there is no bruise anywhere from that moment. However, a bruise with a color like this takes time, it takes a couple of hours or more." He said that it would be damage and that it is safe to say that it is a wound caused by torture.
There was clear evidence of torture, but the attitudes of the investigators who participated in the investigation at the time were all brazen. In particular, one investigator made it frustrating for those who said, "The reason people talk like torture is because of people who like to talk about others in society. And those who talk are all Communists."
The case seemed to be falling into a labyrinth with the people involved in the case kept silent. However, at this time, one of the central government officials made a shocking statement. At that time, Kim Gye-jang made a remark to the effect that he pushed Choi Jong-gil down, and he showed the movement of pushing himself down. So Kim Gye-jang tried to hear the truth of that day. However, it turned out that he was already dead.
After that, the investigation continued, and the results of the investigation were announced in May 2002. The result of their investigation is that "Even though Professor Choi never confessed to being a spy, the Jung Jung-eun confessed that he was a spy in order to cover up the torture, and fabricated it as if he committed suicide." However, the question of Professor Choi's death remained a mystery.
In response, his son said, "We have not been able to find out how his father died. We even listed those involved, but no one admitted to, confessed to, or asked for an apology," he said bitterly.
So, why was Professor Choi a target? At that time, after the promulgation of the Yushin Constitution, the center of the protests against the Yushin Constitution was the university. In order to prevent the protests spreading in the university district, a grave was needed, so the courthouse took out a spy card.
In particular, at the time, a Seoul Law University student was detained after taking part in a protest. In response, Professor Choi said at a faculty meeting, "There is a justifiable reason for the students' actions. As a teacher, how can you pretend you don't know? You have to send the president to protest and apologize to the president. A court officer resident at the university heard what he claimed to be, and reported it to the upper management, and was studded with ugly hair. It was really embarrassing, but it was even more shocking to find out that there was no real spy among the 54 people who were caught as spies together with Professor Choi at the time.
All those who were accused of being spies were acquitted. Then, among the officers who manipulated and concealed them as spies, and the investigators who tortured them, not a single one was punished. The case was closed with the statute of limitations.
In response, the story friends expressed their anger at the state's attitude that the statute of limitations had expired and could not be held accountable, saying, "The statute of limitations for crimes committed by the state should be abolished," raising their voices that this will not happen again when clear responsibility and punishment are made.
(SBS Entertainment News Editor Kim Hyo-jung)