SOUTH KOREA. FORMER PRESIDENT CALLS FOR ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY

former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung called for scrapping the death penalty as his nation showed signs of ending the controversial practice.
Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate known for his lifelong struggle for democracy and human rights, made the appeal in an article distributed by Amnesty International.
"Capital punishment goes against the foundation of democracy," Kim said in the article datelined February 20. "To end a person's life even in the name of law clearly runs counter to the basic principle of human rights."
Kim cited concerns about the possibility of judges making misjudgment or dictators misusing the punishment to oppress political dissidents.
"This was what happened ... when I was on the verge of being executed," he said. In 1980, Kim, then a dissident, had been sentenced to death after the then military junta pressed trumped-up sedition charges against him over a pro-democracy uprising in Kim's home province. After Washington's intervention, however, Kim had his death sentence reduced to life imprisonment and was allowed to leave for exile in the US in 1982.