Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, winner of a Nobel Peace Prize for his Sunshine Policy of engagement with North Korea, has died. He was 83.
Mr Kim, who was being treated for pneumonia, was reported to have died after suffering heart failure, the BBC reports.
He was declared dead just after 1.40pm local time on Tuesday, a spokesman at the Severance hospital in Seoul said.
The former leader had spent his life pursuing democracy and reunification with the North and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts to improve ties with Pyongyang.
Mr Kim was branded a dangerous radical during South Korea's decades of military rule. He survived several assassination attempts, was sentenced to death, and tortured in jail. He was exiled twice and put under house arrest countless times.
Mr Kim made history when he was elected to the presidency in December 1997 on his fourth attempt - the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling to an opposition party since the country was founded in 1948.
He remained president until he stepped down in 2003.
In 2007 South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, admitted abducting Mr Kim in 1973, with tacit backing from then leader Park Chung-hee.
