Chun Doo-hwan, the former military dictator of South Korea, died. He died at his home in Seoul. He was 90 years old. Chun Doo-hwan took power in a coup and ruled his country with an iron fist for most of the 1980s, sending paratroopers and armored vehicles to mow down hundreds of pro-democracy protesters.
His death, according to the New York Times on his website, it was confirmed by the South Korean National Police Agency. In 1996, 8 years after leaving office, Chun was sentenced to death on charges of sedition and subversion due to his role in the 1979 coup that brought him to power and the massacre of protesters in the southwestern city of Gwangju the following year. The former dictator, however, was pardoned in 1997 in a gesture of reconciliation, shortly after Kim Dae-jung, a former dissident who was once sentenced to death by the military junta in Chun, was elected president.
Chun, who ruled his country from 1979 until early 1988, was also convicted of raising hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from wealthy and politically close families, known as chaebols, whose businesses expanded. with the help of tax cuts and other government favors. Chun, who never apologized for his actions, was the last to die among South Korea’s three military presidents-generals.