SECTION: International News
LENGTH: 632 words
HEADLINE: Muskie, Amnesty International Comments
BYLINE: By K.C. HWANG, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: SEOUL, South Korea
BODY:
Dissident leader Kim Dae-jung today was sentenced to be hanged after a military court ignored U.S. and Japanese pleas and convicted him of attempting to overthrow the South Korean government.
Twenty-three of Kim's followers received prison terms ranging from two to 20 years. The verdicts automatically go to a higher military court for review and then to the nation's supreme court.
President Chun Doo-hwan, South Korea's new military strongman, could commute Kim's death sentence in deference to the United States, which stated its firm opposition to the death sentence for Kim.
U.S. Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie issued a statement in Washington calling the Kim verdict "extreme" but he reserved any substantive reaction while the case is under review.
Muskie reminded South Korea that Kim's fate has been watched with "intense interest" and "deep concern," and said officials in Seoul should be aware of the strong feelings within the Carter administration about the opposition leader.
But informed sources say the Carter administration has little influence with Chun's regime despite its dependence on U.S. aid and trade and the 40,000 GIs here who help guard against an attack from communist North Korea.
Both the U.S. and Japanese governments have conveyed their opposition to a death sentence for Kim to Chun's regime over the past few months, and today Japan's foreign minister, Masayoshi Ito, told a Tokyo news conference the sentence was "very undesirable" and would "complicate and make difficult" Japan's relations with the Seoul government. He said Japan will continue doing what it can to discourage the sentence from being carried out.
Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, said it was "appalled" by the death sentence given Kim, adding that the trial had "failed to meet internationally recognized standards of fairness."
When the sentences were read, some of the relatives of the defendants in the courtroom began singing the national anthem. Plainclothes police quickly pushed them from the room.
The verdict against Kim said his "activities sympathizing with North Korea's puppet line, instigating students and creating national and social confusion cannot be forgiven."
In his defense summary Saturday, Kim proclaimed his innocence, declared he never tried to seize power through insurrection, and said he had tried to spur democratic reforms and was not in sympathy with North Korea's regime.
Kim was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government by organizing and financing anti-government demonstrations in Seoul and in the southern city of Kwangju in May. At least 260 people were killed in the Kwangju uprising.
Thirteen of Kim's followeres were accused of joining in or helping plan the May riots, and 10 others were charged with illegal political activity.
Kim was an outspoken foe of the late President Park Chung-hee and continued his attacks on the new martial-law government installed after Park's assassination Oct. 26.
Kim ran a close second to Park in the 1971 presidential election, and after his defeat traveled abroad, criticizing Park and the armed forces that originally installed Park in power in a coup in 1961.
In 1973, Kim was kidnapped from a Tokyo hotel room and taken back to Seoul, where he was placed under house arrest. His supporters blamed his abduction on agents of the South Korean CIA.
He was imprisoned in 1976 for his continued attacks on Park's regime, but was released two years later and his political rights were restored following Park's assassination.
In the months following Park's death, Kim was considered one of the major candidates in free presidential elections promised for next year. Then on May 17, he and most of the other 23 defendants were arrested.