A memorial park commemorating independence fighter Hong Beom-do will open at his former burial site in Kazakhstan later this week.

According to the veterans ministry on Wednesday, an opening ceremony will take place on Friday, with vice veterans minister Yoon Jong-jin and some 60 others expected to attend.

The event comes as South Korea had pledged to build a memorial at the burial site in the southern Kazakhstan city of Kyzylorda after his remains were repatriated for burial at the Daejeon National Cemetery in August of 2021.

Hong is a revered Korean independence fighter who fought against Japan’s colonial rule and moved to the Soviet Union to seek refuge from Japanese forces in 1921 before being forcibly relocated to current-day Kazakhstan in 1937 under Soviet policy along with many other ethnic Koreans.

He died in 1943 at the age of 75, just two years before Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule.

The independence fighter had recently been at the center of a dispute after the defense ministry announced in August that it would consider relocating his busts from its headquarters and the Korea Military Academy, citing his past record of collaborating with communist Soviet forces.