Kim Shin-hye is surrounded by reporters near the Jangheung Correctional Institution in Jangheung, South Jeolla Province, Monday. The 47-year-old was exonerated after being wrongfully convicted of killing her father in 2000. Newsis

When Kim Shin-hye was put behind bars after being found guilty of killing her father in 2000, she was only 23 years old. After spending 24 years in prison, she was declared innocent in a court ruling.

Judges at the Gwangju District Court on Monday overturned her conviction in her retrial and ordered the Jangheung Correctional Institution to release Kim, who is now 47.

"This should never be repeated," Kim said as she exited the facility. "It could've been corrected (earlier). But it took 25 years. (In prison,) I thought a lot about why it should take such a long time … I'll do my part to prevent a recurrence of such tragedy."

It is the first case of a prisoner being exonerated and released for a wrongful conviction while still serving time in prison in Korea.

Kim was previously sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering her father, then 52, who was found dead near a bus station on Wando, an island county in South Jeolla Province, on March 7, 2000.

Initially, he was suspected of being killed in a car accident. But an autopsy found that he was intoxicated with alcohol and doxylamine, an antihistamine drug used to treat insomnia.

Soon, they arrested Kim as the prime suspect, mainly based on her confession. They accused her of killing him by tricking him into having alcohol mixed with 30 doxylamine pills, saying she did so for retribution after he sexually assaulted her. They also said a life insurance payout may have also motivated her to plot to murder him.

But as the trial began, Kim reversed her statement, insisting on her innocence. She said she lied because she wanted to protect her younger brother, who was suspected of committing the crime. Kim said she had believed a relative who told her that her brother must have been the killer.

She also said she had never been sexually assaulted. Frightened and confused, she said she had done what some of her relatives told her, believing she would receive a less severe penalty if she made such claims.

Yet the prosecution and judges eventually dismissed her claims and sentenced her to life imprisonment.

Park Joon-young, a human rights lawyer who helped Kim Shin-hye in her retrial, smiles after her release from the Jangheung Correctional Institution in Jangheung, South Jeolla Province, Monday. Yonhap

She would still be incarcerated — without any realistic hope of release — if it had not been for Park Joon-young, a human rights lawyer known for helping people like Kim.

Having conducted his own investigation, Park, along with other lawyers, concluded that she was wrongfully interrogated by police in the first place and that it led to a flawed ruling. He then filed for a retrial, which the court accepted in 2015.

"For 24 years, she fought a battle for truth inside a solitary cell," the lawyer said. "I hope this ruling serves as a turning point for Kim and her siblings to restore their lives."

After years of hearings, the judges concluded that evidence used against her had been obtained unlawfully, through coercion and searches without a warrant, and that accusations brought against her had not been sufficiently verified.

The autopsy report showed no evidence that he had taken a large amount of doxylamine as alleged by the prosecution, said the court, adding that his high blood alcohol content of 0.303 percent may have been the real cause of his death.

The court also ruled that evidence was insufficient to prove that she had been sexually assaulted.

On insurance fraud allegations, Judge Park Hyun-soo said: "She would not be allowed to claim the benefit of his newly contracted insurance within the first two years and she was probably aware of it all as an insurance planner."