The man believed to be the world's longest-serving political prisoner is to be set free on Thursday, after serving 41 years in solitary confinement in South Korea.
Woo Yong Gak (71) is one of 17 long-term prisoners to be released on humanitarian grounds under an amnesty to mark President Kim Dae Jung's first year in office on February 25th. President Kim was himself a political prisoner during military rule in South Korea.
In continuous solitary confinement since the era when Eisenhower and Khrushchev were Cold War antagonists, Woo was arrested off South Korea's east coast in 1958 when on an espionage mission for North Korea. Then he was a 29-year-old soldier, today he has trouble speaking and has lost all his teeth, and he suffers from facial paralysis following a stroke.
Born in 1929 in North Pyongan Province in North Korea, he was caught with seven other commandos on July 12th, 1958, by a South Korean patrol boat. Four members of his unit agreed to co-operate with naval intelligence, but Woo and three others refused and were convicted of spying. One has since died of cancer and the other two were released.
Last August, 94 political prisoners were set free in South Korea after they signed an oath to respect the National Security Law, which has been used to imprison communist sympathisers, sometimes for trivial offences such as listening to North Korean radio broadcasts. Before then, prisoners could secure their release only by signing an oath specifically renouncing communism.
All 17 prisoners being freed this week are North Koreans who refused to take either oath.
The South Korean Justice Minister, Mr Park Sang Cheon, said yesterday they most likely feared that if they swore the oath their families in North Korea would suffer. Now he believed they were no longer a threat to Korean society because of their age.
The government will extend the amnesty to 8,812 offenders under the National Security Law, many convicted of labour offences such as organising strikes and corruption. Some 1,508 will be released on parole, 12 will have their sentences reduced and 7,292 will get their civil rights back.
South Korea and the Democratic Republic of Korea in the North remain technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean war.