Putschist Ex-President Chun Doo-hwan Dies

Putschist former President Chun Doo-hwan died on Tuesday. He was 90.

He had been suffering from multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer.

Born in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province in 1931, Chun seized power in a military coup in 1979 and ruled with an iron fist from 1980 until he resigned amid mass democracy demonstrations in 1987. He was succeeded by the country’s first directly elected president, his right-hand man Roh Tae-woo.

Chun was convicted of treason in 1996 and sentenced to death but pardoned the following year.

Unlike Roh, who died last month, he refused to face responsibility for the bloody 1980 Gwangju massacre of democracy protestors until the end of his life, and was only last year convicted again of defaming the late activist priest Cho Chul-hyun, who gave an eyewitness account of the carnage.

At the time of Chun’s death prosecutors were still appealing his suspended sentence.