Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-jung was the main opposition leader in South Korea under its military governments. In August 1973 agents of the Korean intelligence agency abducted him from a hotel in Tokyo; the agency admitted the plot in 2007. In March 1976 he signed a Declaration of Democracy for National Salvation, was arrested days later and sentenced to up to seven years, reduced to five by the Supreme Court. On 17 May 1980 he was arrested after the army widened martial law, and on 11 September a military court sentenced him to death on charges that included conspiring to instigate the Gwangju Uprising.

The Supreme Court rejected his appeal in January 1981. After pressure from the United States his sentence was commuted to life, then reduced to twenty years, and in December 1982 he was released and sent to exile in the United States. He won the presidency in December 1997 and took office in February 1998. In 2000 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.