(Adds court papers)

By Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who was fired from one of the country's top universities after his team falsified landmark papers, is suing to get his old job back, his lawyer said on Monday.

Hwang, who was sacked by Seoul National University in March and is on trial in a criminal fraud case related to his work, said in a court filing he was unfairly dismissed due to distorted evidence, his lawyer, Lee Geon-haeng, said by telephone.

"The plaintiff's (Hwang's) case was not subject to an impartial and legal procedure. The defendant (university) chose to use extreme measures of dismissing a scientist while failing to evaluate the objective truth and his public accomplishments," the papers filed by Hwang's lawyers said.

University officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.

Hwang resigned his post in December 2005, after a preliminary report from a team at Seoul National University accused his team of fabricating crucial data.

Hwang's work had once raised hopes because it seemed to fulfil a promise of embryonic stem cell studies where tissue could be grown to repair damaged bodies and cure illnesses such as Parkinson's disease and severe spinal cord injuries.

A few months ago, he resumed work on animal cloning at a private laboratory financed by his supporters. The government has suspended his license to do embryonic stem cell research.

The investigation panel at the university said in a final report in January that Hwang's team knowingly fabricated key data in two groundbreaking papers on embryonic stem cells that have since been retracted by the journal Science, which published them.

Hwang, once celebrated as a national hero, was indicted in May on charges of fraud and embezzlement after prosecutors said he was the mastermind of a scheme to make it look like his team had produced stem cells from cloned human embryos.

Prosecutors have charged Hwang with committing fraud to secure funds and misusing 2.8 billion won ($2.97 million) in state funds and private donations, as well as violating bioethics laws in procuring human eggs for research.

Hwang, who has apologised for fraud in his team's work, has denied any wrongdoing and said he was duped by junior researchers into believing the landmark results. (With additional reporting by Lee Jin-joo)

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