Grim Verdict

A death sentence draws fire

From the very first, the trial had seemed more a political charade than an exercise of justice. The defendants complained that they were unable to obtain proper counsel because more than 50 lawyers, fearful of South Korea's repressive political climate, refused to represent them. When they proposed to introduce a long list of character witnesses from Japan and the U.S., the request was turned down. Ultimately, the prosecution's own case rested almost solely on a series of "confessions," which the defendants repudiated, testifying that they had been extracted by torture. Thus when the four generals of the military tribunal in Seoul pronounced their verdict last week at the end of the month-long trial, it was a grim, foregone conclusion: South Korean Opposition Leader Kim Dae Jung, 54, was found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the government and sentenced to death by hanging. His 23 codefendants, a group of Christian ministers, university professors and students, were given prison terms ranging from two to 20 years.

Stunned by the swift, six-minute sentencing, relatives of the defendants burst into an impassioned chorus of the national anthem. Plainclothes police hastily dragged them from the courtroom. Kim, pale and wan from 60 days of solitary confinement and constant interrogation that he said had driven him to the brink of insanity, attempted to smile bravely as he was led away. The immediate reaction in South Korea, still under tight martial law, was muted. But the verdict evoked outrage in other countries. In Japan, trade unions and student organizations mounted a series of protest demonstrations. In West Germany, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher warned of "difficult consequences" if the sentence were carried out and appealed for international pressure against it. Said U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie: "We obviously have strong feelings about the extreme verdict which has been handed down."

The show trial was widely interpreted as an attempt by President Chun Doo Hwan, the general who emerged earlier this year as South Korea's new military strongman, to muzzle any vestiges of political opposition. The popular, soft-spoken Kim had won 46% of the vote against President Park Chung Hee in the country's 1971 presidential election. Afterward, in voluntary exile abroad, he became an active spokesman against Park's authoritarian rule. In 1973 he was kidnaped from a Tokyo hotel room by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and dragooned back to Seoul. He remained under house arrest and later imprisonment until 1978. In the brief hiatus of political relaxation that followed Park's assassination last October, Kim was considered the foremost candidate for the free presidential elections that the military-backed transitional government promised to call in the near future.

In May, however, when the generals had failed to lift martial law and set a timetable for a transfer of political power to an elected civilian government, violent uprisings erupted in Seoul, Kwangju and other cities. Kim was arrested and indicted on six charges, including the capital crimes of sedition and conspiracy to commit sedition. He denied those charges, insisting that in fact he had pleaded with antigovernment students for restraint. Kim further testified that a plot to overthrow the government would hardly make sense since he had reason to believe he could win the election. In the end, the inciting of sedition charge was dropped, but the prosecution demanded the death penalty for conspiracy.

Even before the verdict was handed down, Washington as well as Tokyo had expressed misgivings about the trial and characterized the charges against Kim as "farfetched." Now both friendly governments were somewhat at a loss as to what other measures they might take. Tokyo does not want to endanger the $10 billion in trade it enjoys with South Korea, and Washington is hesitant to do anything that might weaken its links with one of its most vital Pacific allies. Thus Kim's foreign supporters could only hope that he might win the legal appeals open to him, first before the appellate military court and then the supreme court. Failing that, his last chance would rest on an act of clemency if Strongman Chun were to heed the court of international opinion.

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