SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's top public prosecutor has apologized over what he described as a botched investigation into the enslavement and mistreatment of thousands of people at a vagrants' facility in the 1970s and 1980s nearly three decades after its owner was acquitted of serious charges.
Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il's comments on Tuesday marked first time the national government formally expressed remorse over the human rights atrocities at Brothers Home.
Military dictators in the 1960s to 1980s ordered roundups to "purify" the streets, sending the homeless, disabled and children to facilities where they were detained and forced to work.
No one has been held accountable for the hundreds of deaths, rapes and beatings at the now-closed Brothers Home in the city of Busan that was the largest of those facilities.
