One of South Korea's former presidents, Chun Doo-hwan,... well known for his deadly military crackdown on the 1980 pro-democracy movement... is on his way to a hear a libel case against him in the country's southwestern city of Gwangju today. <br />Cha Sang-mi starts us off. <br /> Chun Doo-hwan left his house in Seoul's Yeonhui-dong district at around 8:30 AM to attend the libel case hearing in Gwangju.<br />He was accompanied by two teams of detectives, following the car which carried his wife Rhee Soon-ja, Chun and his lawyer.<br /> Pro-Chun protests were taking place from early in the morning... some 200 people holding signs saying "no trial for President Chun Doo-hwan" and shouting it is a "violation of human rights" to open a trial about something that happened 40 years ago.<br /><br /> Chun's lawyer said last week that the ex-president would attend Monday's hearing and insisted that he hasn't dodged the hearing so far, but couldn't attend because of health issues.<br />This comes after the Gwangju District Court issued an arrest warrant for Chun, when he refused to show up at court for a second time in January, citing health reasons.<br />He refused to attend for the first time in August of last year, citing issues caused by Alzheimer's Disease.<br /><br /> "Chun Doo-hwan served as president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. He took power in a military coup in May 1980, where he ordered troops to fire on student protesters in Gwangju, who were calling for him to step down -- killing around 200."<br /><br />Chun was sentenced to death in 1996, but was pardoned and released from custody the following year by the Kim Young-sam administration.<br /> He was indicted without detention in May 2018 on charges that his memoirs, published in 2017, disgraced the late activist priest Cho Chul-hyun.<br />Cho insisted he witnessed the military firing on citizens during the bloody crackdown of Gwangju.<br />Chun denied the priest's claim in his memoirs, calling Cho "Satan wearing a mask" and a "liar." <br /> Later, a relative of priest Cho filed the libel suit against him. <br />If convicted, Chun could face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to five-thousand U.S. dollars.<br />Cha Sang-mi, Arirang News. <br />
