Chun Doo-hwan ( born 18 January 1931) is a former
South Korean army general who served as the leader of
South Korea from 1979 to 1988, ruling as an unelected leader from December 1979 to September 1980, and the fifth
President of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. Chun was sentenced to death in 1996 for his role in the
Gwangju Massacre, but later pardoned by President
Kim Young-sam with the advice of then President-elect
Kim Dae-jung, who Chun's administration had sentenced to death some 20 years earlier.