Abductee: Seo Seung-kun
Recorded Date: July 30th, 2013


Profile of Abductee

Name: So Seung-kun (male)
Date of birth: March 25th, 1907
Place of birth: Gayakgok-myeon, Nonsan-gun, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea
Last address: Official Residence of Supreme Court, 186, Jangchung-dong 2-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Date of abduction: Early July in 1950 (age 43)
Place of abduction: The Administration department in the Supreme Court
Occupation: Chief of Accounting Section of Administration department in the Supreme Court
Dependants: Wife, 2 sons and 2 daughters
Appearance/Personality: had benevolent smile, usually gentle and quiet



Profile of Witness

Name: So Jeong-sik (born in 1935)
Relation: First son
Type of Witness: Direct witness

Summary of Abduction

- He was Chief of Accounting Section of Administration department in the Supreme Court
- The abudctee has never return since early July, when he went out with two officials who came to his house and asked him to go with them to be investigated.
- His family had tried to visit him detained in the Security Bureau building(which was a city library building until the North’s occupation) but failed.
- When he had been first taken, he was released and returned home. But after a few days of his return, 2 officers visited him and arrested him again. And then he’s never come back so far.


Detail of the Abduction

Q. What did your father do for a living at the time of abduction?
At first, he ran an agency of a Mitsubishi Fertilizer Company, but it didn’t go well so he closed the agency and went back to his hometown and took some time to adjust his direction of occupation. Then he ran for the National Assembly but defeated. After a while, he became the Chief of Accounting Section of Administration department in the Supreme Court.
At that time, the position seemed to manage almost all of the financial tasks of judicial branch of the government. Soon, the system was almost arranged and my father was about to became the chief of the organization, being in charge of organizing the budget. Unfortunately however, right before the system was settled he was neither promoted nor evacuated Seoul at a proper time.

Q. Did he join in any activities of a social organization?
No, he didn’t.

Q. Could you please describe when your father was abducted, as detail as you can remember?
I’m not sure that they were Communists or not, some people surrounded my house and they ordered all of my family out and to kneel down on the front yard. Furthermore, they ordered us to sing a hymn song of Kim Il-sung, but how would we know such songs?
When 5~6 of them broke into our house, and I thought that we’re all dead. But they didn’t kill us and just went back out only with my father. Rest of my family remained safe and untouched but some of household goods were lost. My father was back the next day, on around 30th of June.
My father was anxious about the situation and was not able to decide to escape from Seoul. He was too considerate and he didn’t think the situation would go worse just like we know now. He failed to anticipate the unsafe, confusing situation. If he predicted what would happen and decided to do something rather than doing nothing and staying in Seoul, things could have been different.

Q. Could you please describe the people who arrested your father?
They were two and it seemed that they were from prison camp, the Communist prisoners in South Korea.

Q. Did the two say anything? Do you know who they were?
I don’t know exactly. We couldn’t even say a word to them and they didn’t say anything either. Their attitude toward my father was very gentle, saying just a few words of asking to give them a little bit of time to investigate some things. They didn’t threat us and investigated almost everything.

Q. Was there any witness of the abduction?
All of my family were there and witnessed my father being arrested.


Reason behind the Abduction

Q. Why do you think he was abducted?
We don’t even know why he was abducted. He was not abducted during a battle, a conflict, or a counter match. Lots of people were captured without any information of the reason of capture. They didn’t tell us why they arrested him. That is terrible. It was a complete disregard of personal lives or personalities. Young people should know about this.
So, I didn’t want to live in such a society. 1.4 Why do you think people kept going southward, even after the January 4th Retreat? Among them, there were families of soldiers but most of them didn’t like Communism itself. They should know the real reason that people escaped. Writers, politicians should know about this but they all just know superficially.


News after the Abduction

Q. After he was arrested, no news was given to you?
I didn’t see him going. I just know that he was gone like that, and never seen him since then.

Q. Then, do you know what happened to him after the abduction?
He disappeared from his office. If we had known that we wouldn’t let him go to the office. Therefore, my mother checked up if when my father could come back. We have some leftists among our relatives, and we visited them to ask for some help but none of them was able to provide us any information of his whereabouts.
Later some time, there was a city library in front of Chosun Hotel, and it was the Security Bureau building at that time. And somebody told us that my father was detained there. However, my mother failed to see him because the officers didn’t allow us to do so.

Q. Despite all the effort you’d made, you never gotten any information about him?
No we’ve never. Not only but almost all of us have ever gotten any information of the abductees’ whereabouts. Families were collapsed down overnight by their fathers gone, so the remaining family members desperately searched for the heads of their households. But none of them were found.
My family heard from some people who escaped from the abduction, but no information about my father was given from anyone. We waited for hearing so hard his whereabouts but none were given. At that time, my oldest uncle worked for Dong-a Daily Newspaper, and he was the Chief Editor but he was not able to get any information about my father’s whereabouts as well.