From a Special Correspondent Three prominent critics of President Park Chung-Hee's Government one a Catholic Bishop — were each jailed for 15 years by a special South Korean court in Seoul on Monday. A fourth man was sentenced to 10 years.
A fifth, ex-President Yun Po-Sun, 76, was given a three-year sentence, suspended for five years.
All five were accused of supporting, either with money or encouragement, a banned student group alleged to have planned violent uprisings aimed at overthrowing the government and installing a proCommunist regime.
An announcement from the Defence Ministry said the court had passed a light sentence on Mr Yun in consideration of his past service to the nation. The prosecution had demanded a 15-year fail term.
Mr Yun was sentenced for instigating a rebellion and violating a presidential emergency decree banning the student group, called the National Federation of Democratic Young Students.
Those given I 5-year terms were Bishop Tji HakSoun; a Presbyterian pastor, the Rev Pak Hyong-Kyu, and Professor Kim Dong-Kil of Yonsei University. Mr Kim Chan-Kook, the Dean of Theology of Yonsei, was given 10 years.
Ex-President Yun was accused of having given 400,000 won (about £440) through the Rev sPlaukHnytomngo-vKeymit etnoti.eaders of the de
Informed sources said Mr Yun admitted in the court that he gave money to students to help them to stage antigovernment demonstrations, but he claimed he did not know of any pro-Communist plot and had never heard of the name of their organisation,
Bishop Tji, 52, of Wonju Diocese, about 55 miles east of Seoul, was also found guilty of giving money to the student leaders.
The bishop a leading civil rights activist, was said to have given 1,000,000 won (about £1,200) between December last year and March this year. He claimed that he gave the money to the students for use in a movement of "Christian justice and love"