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About 1,000 students clash with police in Seoul

SEOUL: About 1,000 South Korean students, demanding an official apology for the death of a fellow student during a protest rally, clashed with riot police in Seoul on Sunday, witnesses said.

The students also demanded that President Kim Young-sam take responsibility for the death by resigning.

"Punish those responsible for the death of Roh (Soo-sok) and President Kim Young-sam resign," students chanted. Others wore banners reading: "Down with the Kim Young-sam government of brutality."

Roh, a law student at Seoul's Yonsei University, died on March 29 during an anti-government rally in central Seoul.

An autopsy two days later showed he had suffered a fatal heart attack, but students said police brutality was to blame.

Roh's coffin, kept in a refrigerated container, lay on Yonsei's campus for a fourth day as students have blocked it from leaving to be buried in the southwestern city of Kwangju.

The clash with police lasted about an hour, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.-Reuter