Controversy
Because of his relentless investigations, Kim is despised by a majority of the Korean people and some go so far as to consider him a war criminal. This resentment has been much emphasized in later years by the alleged claim of former president Kim Gu's murderer Ahn Doo-hee that Kim Chang-Ryong was the mastermind of the assassination. Kim Gu's relatives even urged the South Korean government to exhume Kim Chang-Ryong's remains and banish them from the National Military Cemetery of Daejeon. Despite what seems to be commonly believed, Kim Chang-Ryong's involvement in the assassination of Kim Gu is not definite : while Kim seems to have looked after Ahn after the assassination, the chief of the operation was Major Chang En-san, then the commander of the artillery corps, who himself was arrested by Kim in July 1950 and executed in Daegu. Besides, at the time of Kim Gu's death, in 1949, Kim Chang-Ryong was only a subordinate officer and could not be possibly given such power as would imply organizing an assassination.
Read more about this topic: Kim Chang-ryong
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