College students who shouted "Chun Doo-hwan, step down" acquitted in retrial after 45 years

[The Financial News] College students who criticized the military regime and demanded the resignation of former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan have been acquitted in a retrial 45 years later.
According to the legal community on the 25th, Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 5 Single-Judge Panel Judge Ryu Jimi of the Seoul Central District Court on the 5th acquitted three people, including a man identified by the surname Nam, who had been charged with violating the Assembly and Demonstration Act.
In October 1981, they were accused of distributing leaflets on a university campus that criticized the Chun Doo-hwan regime, including messages such as "Chun Doo-hwan, step down," and of chanting similar slogans to fellow students.
In December of the same year, the court sentenced each of them to two years in prison. Both the defendants and the prosecution appealed, but the following March the appeals were dismissed and the convictions became final.
The defendants later filed for a retrial, and on January 16 this year the Seoul Central District Court granted their request and ordered the retrial to begin.
The court first cited a Supreme Court of Korea precedent on Chun Doo-hwan’s case as the ringleader of an insurrection, characterizing his conduct as acts that destroyed the constitutional order. The panel stated, "Chun Doo-hwan and others, after staging the 12.12 Military Insurrection on December 12, 1979, committed a series of criminal acts that destroyed the constitutional order, beginning with the proclamation of expanded martial law on May 17, 1980, and continuing until the lifting of martial law on January 24, 1981."
The court went on to say, "Considering the timing, motives, purposes, targets, means used, and results of the defendants’ actions as a whole, their conduct should be viewed as acts that blocked or opposed the crimes destroying the constitutional order that occurred around May 1980, including 5·18, and as legitimate acts to safeguard the existence of the Constitution and the constitutional order." It therefore found that their actions constituted lawful self-defense.
theknight@fnnews.com Jung Kyung-soo Reporter