Police have decided to drop their plan to push for an autopsy on Baek Nam-gi, an activist farmer who died 10 months after being knocked out by a police water cannon at a street rally.

“We have decided not to seek the renewal of a warrant (for an autopsy) after consultation with the state prosecutors,” Jongno Police Station said in a press statement late Friday. 


Baek’s body, still at the Seoul National University Hospital where he died, should be handed over to his family for a funeral, it said.

Police had faced off several times with the bereaved family and their sympathizers for weeks who oppose the post mortem examination.

The authorities had pushed for the autopsy after a complaint was filed to determine the exact cause of Baek’s death. The university hospital wrote in its death diagnosis that his death was due to illness, not due to an external cause, sparking a heated debate. 

By Korea Herald staff / (khnews@heraldcorp.com)