A Seoul court on Tuesday awarded a fisherman compensation of more than $2 million for being tortured and imprisoned in the 1980s on false charges of spying for North Korea.

The Seoul Central District court ordered a payment of 2.45 billion won ($2.2 million) to the fisherman, identified as Cheong, and six of his family members named in the compensation suit, a court spokesman said.

Cheong, along with dozens of other fishermen, was briefly detained in the North in 1965 after they were seized while collecting shellfish on an islet close to the disputed sea border in the Yellow Sea.

Seventeen years later, in 1982, he was taken into custody by the government and grilled for 13 days by counter-espionage agents.

Released without charge, he was detained again the following year for 38 days, and ended up signing a confession.

Cheong, now 71, served 15 years in prison before being released on parole in 1998, after which he remained under surveillance.

"The investigators fabricated evidence and extracted false confessions through torture and threats," the court said.

His innocence was confirmed by the Supreme Court in January last year, after which he and six family members filed for compensation.