South Korea is retrying the spy chief who assassinated Park Chung-hee

Two gunshots.

That’s how Yoo Seok-sul begins recounting the evening of Friday, 26 October, 1979.

A former safety guard within the Korea Central Intelligence Company, or KCIA, because the South’s spy division was recognized, Yoo has many tales to inform. However that is maybe essentially the most notorious.

He remembers the time – practically 19:40 – and the place he had been sitting – within the break room. He was resting after his shift guarding the doorway to the low-rise compound the place President Park Chung-hee entertained his most trusted lieutenants. They referred to as it the “protected home”.

In his 70s now, wiry with sharp eyes, Yoo speaks hesitantly at first – nevertheless it comes again to him rapidly. After the primary photographs, extra gunfire adopted, he says. The guards had been on excessive alert however they waited exterior for orders. The president’s safety element was inside, together with the KCIA’s prime brokers.

Then Yoo’s boss, a KCIA officer who oversaw safety for the protected home, stepped exterior. “He came visiting and requested me to bury one thing within the backyard.” It was two weapons, bullets and a pair of sneakers. Flustered, Yoo adopted orders, he says.

He didn’t know who had been shot, and he did not ask.

“I by no means imagined that it was the president.”

The weapons Yoo buried had been used to assassinate Park Chung-hee, who had dominated South Korea for the earlier 18 years, longer than any president earlier than or since. The person who shot him was his long-time good friend Kim Jae-gyu, who ran the much-feared KCIA, a pillar of Park’s dictatorship.

That Friday shook South Korea, ending Park Chung-hee’s stifling rule and ushering in one other decade beneath the army. Kim was executed for rebel, together with 5 others.

Now, 46 years later, that evening is again within the highlight as a court docket retries Kim Jae-gyu to find out if his actions amounted to treason. He has remained a deeply polarising determine – some see him as a killer blinded by energy and ambition, others as a patriot who sacrificed himself to set South Korea on the trail to democracy. The president he killed isn’t any much less divisive, lauded for his nation’s financial rise and reviled for his authoritarian rule.

Kim’s household fought for the retrial, arguing that he can’t be remembered as a traitor. They’ll now have their day within the Seoul Excessive Court docket simply as impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol goes on trial for a similar cost that despatched Kim to the gallows.

Yoon’s martial legislation order final December was short-lived nevertheless it threw up questions on South Korean democracy – and that will affect how the nation sees a person who shot lifeless a dictator he claimed was getting ready to unleashing carnage.

Was Kim making an attempt to grab energy for himself or to spark a revolution, as he claimed in court docket?

When information of the capturing broke within the morning, it despatched shockwaves by South Korea. Preliminary studies referred to as it “unintentional”.

What was left of Park’s coterie tried to make sense of what had occurred. Kim had been an in depth ally since Park seized energy in a coup in 1961. They shared a hometown and had began out collectively on the army academy.

Veteran journalist Cho Gab-je acknowledges that Kim appeared uncomfortable with a few of Park’s actions, however “there isn’t any report that Kim really acted on these issues, no proof he launched political prisoners, clashed with Park, or submitted formal objections”.

Kim advised the court docket he had thought of killing Park at the very least 3 times. However historical past exhibits he supported Park as he tightened his grip, abolishing direct presidential elections and time period limits, permitting him to regulate the Nationwide Meeting and even droop constitutional rights.

“My brother was by no means the sort of one who would commit such an act simply to grow to be president,” insists his sister Kim Jung-sook, who’s now 86.

However he ran the KCIA, which was infamous for jailing, torturing and even framing harmless college students, dissidents and opposition figures with false fees.

“They tortured folks, fabricated fees, and imprisoned them… and in the event you criticised that, you’d get arrested too,” says Father Ham Se-woong, who was imprisoned twice within the Seventies for criticising the federal government.

Kim was not a saviour many may settle for. However that’s the mantle he took on, in accordance with court docket transcripts that weren’t broadly reported on the time. He advised the judges he believed it was crucial to cease Park, whose ruthlessness may plunge South Korea into chaos and price them a important ally, the US.

“I don’t want to beg for my life, as I’ve discovered a trigger to die for,” he mentioned, though he requested the court docket to spare his males who adopted his orders – “harmless sheep”, he referred to as them. He mentioned he had hoped to pave the way in which for a peaceable transition of energy, which had eluded his nation to this point.

On listening to about this again then, even a fierce critic like Father Ham tried launching a marketing campaign for him. “He wished to stop additional bloodshed. That is why we needed to save him,” he says.

Father Ham ended up in jail once more for his efforts, because the trial grew to become a delicate topic. The nation was beneath martial legislation. Days after the trial began – on December 12 – the person who led the investigation into the assassination, Common Chun Doo-hwan, seized energy in a coup.

Proceedings within the army court docket moved at lightning velocity. On 20 December, it convicted Kim of making an attempt to grab energy by homicide, and 6 others of aiding him. Yoo was sentenced to 3 years in jail for hiding the weapons.

By 20 Might the next 12 months, Kim had misplaced his ultimate attraction. 4 days later he was hanged, together with three others. One was spared and one other had been executed earlier. Kim died as the military brutally suppressed a pro-democracy rebellion, killing 166 civilians within the metropolis of Gwangju.

“I bought the impression that Chun Doo-hwan was making an attempt to rapidly wrap up something associated to the earlier regime as a way to seize energy for himself,” says Kim Jung-sook.

She says she noticed her brother simply as soon as by all this, every week earlier than he was executed: “I feel he sensed it is likely to be the final time. So he bowed deeply to my mom as a goodbye.”

Yoo survived however he says after he was free, he was adopted for years: “I could not get a job. Even after I returned to my hometown, they saved tailing me. I could not say a phrase concerning the case.” He now works as an attendant in a personal parking zone exterior Seoul.

Ms Kim says her household didn’t communicate up till about 10 years in the past. After South Korea grew to become a democracy, Park’s picture recovered, improved by time and wealth. His daughter grew to become president, usually defending his legacy for its financial report.

It was her downfall – following huge protests over a corruption scandal – that threw open the door to revisit Kim Jae-gyu’s conviction.

“This case ought to by no means have gone to a army court docket as a result of the assassination occurred earlier than martial legislation was declared,” says Lee Sang-hee, the lawyer answerable for his retrial. She provides that the “sloppy transcripts” would have influenced his attraction as a result of the defence was not allowed to report the proceedings.

“Once I reviewed the paperwork, I could not perceive how he may very well be convicted of rebel when there was such little proof. And above all, there was torture,” she says, which the court docket cited as a legitimate purpose when it agreed in February to a retrial.

It accepted Kim’s assertion, which he submitted in his unsuccessful attraction in 1980, alleging “the investigators beat me indiscriminately and used electrical torture by wrapping an EE8 telephone line round my fingers”.

Reviews on the time alleged that Kim Jae-gyu’s spouse had been detained and tortured too, alongside along with her brother-in-law and brothers, which officers on the time denied.

Now in her 90s, his spouse has all the time been against a retrial.

“She by no means talked about what she had gone by and trembles even now,” Kim Jung-sook, the spy chief’s sister, says.

Ms Kim is resolute in her defence of her brother, repeatedly emphasising that “he was a person of integrity”.

“As a result of we imagine that he didn’t kill the president and his safety chief for private achieve, we have now been in a position to endure all of this.”

The safety chief was Cha Ji-cheol, who had been rising nearer to Park, and sometimes clashed with Kim as the 2 males vied for the president’s ear.

Within the weeks earlier than the assassination, they differed on the way to cope with Kim Younger-sam, an outspoken opposition chief who Park noticed as a menace. In an interview with the New York Occasions, the opposition chief had referred to as on the US to finish Park’s dictatorship. The Nationwide Meeting, managed by Park, expelled him.

The choice kicked off enormous protests in Kim Younger-Sam’s strongholds. Cha wished to crush the rebellion, whereas Kim Jae-gyu suggested warning, which might additionally reassure a Washington that was rising impatient with Park’s rule.

Kim advised the court docket he warned in opposition to firing at protesters, which might solely ignite anger – to which Cha mentioned, “three million died in Cambodia, and nothing occurred. If we kill a million demonstrators, we’ll be superb”.

That night on the protected home, the general public broadcaster reported that the US ambassador was going to fulfill Kim Younger-sam.

An offended Park criticised Kim Jae-gyu for not arresting the opposition chief. When Kim pushed again, the court docket heard, Park retorted: “The company ought to be feared, it ought to prosecute those that deserve it.”

They sat throughout from one another, sipping Scotch and sharing a meal. Park sat between two ladies, a preferred singer and a younger mannequin. Cha and Park’s chief of workers had been additionally there.

The terse exchanges continued, and mid-way by a love music, Kim Jae-gyu mentioned, he pulled out the gun, aimed it at Park and advised him he wanted to alter his politics: “Sir, it’s best to method issues with a extra magnanimous imaginative and prescient – so this isn’t just about you.”

Turning to a shocked Cha, he cursed as he pulled the set off, wounding him within the hand as Cha tried to dam the shot. Then Kim fired into Park’s chest. Outdoors, performing on his orders, KCIA brokers shot lifeless the president’s safety element – two had been consuming dinner, and two had been on standby.

Kim tried capturing the president once more, however the pistol malfunctioned. He ran out to considered one of his males, who gave him a revolver. Having returned, he killed Cha a fleeing Cha, walked in the direction of Park, who was leaning in opposition to the mannequin as he bled, and shot him within the head.

The 2 ladies left unhurt after being paid to maintain quiet. The president’s chief of workers was by no means focused.

Kim then went to the following constructing, the place the military chief he had summoned earlier was ready. The boys left in a automotive for KCIA headquarters.

It is possible he did not argue with Kim – even a shoe-less, suspiciously rattled Kim was highly effective, and his males guarded the compound. However en route he was persuaded to go to military headquarters, the place he was arrested quickly after midnight.

Kim advised the court docket he had deliberate to make use of the military, maybe even impose martial legislation, to finish the “revolution” and transition to democracy.

That is the crux of the retrial. The prosecution had argued it was a premeditated coup, whereas Kim claimed far loftier motives.

However sceptics level to the shortage of planning. The gun that jammed was plucked from a protected earlier than dinner, there have been sufficient witnesses to derail the plot, and he didn’t appear to have a technique for his “revolution”. He didn’t even make it to the KCIA headquarters.

They are saying it might nicely have been an impulsive act of revenge by a person whose energy was waning.

That is what the military normal investigating the murders alleged two days later – Kim, second solely to the president, had a lot to lose as Park sidelined him in favour of Cha Ji-cheol.

The next month, he additionally charged Kim with making an attempt a coup.

“For a cost of rebel to be proved, the accused should forcibly halt the operate of constitutional establishments, however that did not occur on this case,” says lawyer Lee Sang-hee.

In contrast to in impeached president Yoon’s case – the place the court docket will determine if he directed the army to dam parliamentary proceedings – there is no such thing as a proof Kim Jae-gyu tried to grab management of state establishments, she argues.

For South Korea although, the retrial is greater than that. Many see it as a defining second to mirror on the trajectory of a democracy threatened simply six months in the past.

It is usually a chance to re-evaluate Park Chung-hee, whose legacy some say is overstated. “His achievements had been actual, however so had been his faults,” says Kim Duol, an economics professor at Myungji College. “Would South Korea’s progress have been attainable with out such an authoritarian regime?”

Kim’s household hopes his retrial will shed a kinder mild on his legacy. Killing Park was “a painful resolution”, Kim had advised the court docket, however he had “shot on the coronary heart of Yusin [the regime] with the guts of a wild beast”.

Is that sufficient to make the previous spy chief a hero? That could be a query the court docket can’t reply.