▲ President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a joint press announcement with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni following their summit talks at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Jan. 19, 2026. (Yonhap)

Lee-retrial case

Lee expresses regret over delayed justice over posthumous acquittal case

By Kim Eun-jung

SEOUL, Jan. 19 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret Monday over a court's belated acquittal of a man who had been executed in the 1970s after being sentenced to death on charges of alleged ties with North Korea

Lee lamented belated justice after the Seoul Eastern District Court found the late Kang Eul-seong not guilty in a retrial of his high-profile security case dating back the administration of former President Park Chung-hee.

Kang, a civilian employee of the Army at the time, was executed in 1976 after being convicted on charges of attempting to reconstruct an underground political organization under alleged instructions from Pyongyang.

"What responsibility do the police officers, prosecutors and judges who carried out the investigation, prosecution and rulings bear in such a brutally unjust case?" Lee wrote on his X account after sharing news of the verdict.

Lee described the ruling as a belated correction of justice, saying that similar injustices continue to occur even today.

"It is a hundred times better than not correcting it at all, but I cannot help but wonder what meaning it has now, when even the remains have long since been scattered," he said.

Following Monday's ruling, the court issued an apology to Kang's bereaved family on behalf of law enforcement authorities, acknowledging errors in the original investigation and judgment. Prosecutors said they would not appeal the decision.

The case is the latest in a series of retrials involving victims of anti-communist security cases from the 1970s and 1980s, many of whom have since been posthumously acquitted of charges related to violations of the National Security Law.

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