Seoul: The Seoul High Court on Wednesday began the retrial of former spy chief Kim Jae-gyu, who was sentenced to death for assassinating former President Park Chung-hee in 1979 and executed the following year.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the first hearing came five months after the same court accepted Kim's family's request for a retrial, citing indications the former head of the now-defunct Korean Central Intelligence Agency had been tortured and assaulted during interrogation. The family had filed for a retrial in 2020, seeking to clear Kim of an insurrection charge.

"It could be considered a murder case against Park Chung-hee as an individual, but the defendant's purpose was to restore liberal democracy by killing Park Chung-hee, not a subversion of the Constitution," one of his lawyers said during the hearing. "The military junta at the time framed it as an insurrection and distorted the case with the intent of seizing political power."

Kim's younger sister, Jeong-suk, voiced hope that justice will be served. "Had my brother not stopped it, more than 1 million people would have lost their lives," she said at the hearing. "I trust this retrial can become an opportunity for the judiciary to correct its worst history on its own."

Kim assassinated Park and Cha Ji-cheol, head of the Presidential Security Service, on Oct. 26, 1979, during a private dinner party and was sentenced to death and executed in May 1980. The court scheduled the next hearing for Sept. 5.