The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has concluded that the Korea Central Intelligence Agency fabricated a spy case that led to the 1969 execution of a North Korean defector.

According to the fact-finding commission, the KCIA, a precursor to the National Intelligence Service, framed Lee Soo-geun as a spy and executed him.

Lee, a North Korean defector who came South in 1967, was arrested while trying to escape from South Korea two years later.

The commission called the fabrication an anti-humanitarian, anti-democratic violation of human rights. According to the commission, the North Korean defector had tried to leave South Korea due to excessive surveillance by local authorities and concerns for his family in the communist country.

A former vice president of the North’s Korean Central News Agency, Lee defected to South Korea through the border village of Panmunjeom in March 1967. But in January 1969, he went to Hong Kong on a fake passport and was arrested by South Korean intelligence agents while trying to leave for Cambodia. He was put to death six months later.