Former South Korean Prime Minister dies age 92

South Korea’s former prime minister and founder of the country’s spy agency Kim Jong-pil has died age 92. 

An official from Seoul’s Soonchunhyang University Hospital said Saturday that Kim died of age-related complications. 

He served as South Korean Prime Minister twice, from 1971 to 1975 and from 1998 to 2000, and announced his retirement from politics in 2004. 

 

Former South Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil, pictured in 1997, has died in hospital

Kim was a key member of a 1961 coup that put army Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee in power until his 1979 assassination.

Kim created and headed the Korean Central Intelligence Agency before serving as Park’s prime minister.

A government panel said in 2007 that KCIA agents kidnapped then-opposition leader Kim Dae-jung from Tokyo in 1973. 

After Kim Dae-jung became president in 1998, Kim Jong-pil worked as his prime minister under a power-sharing plan.

Kim Jong-pil, pictured left in 2015 and right in 2008, served as the country’s prime minister twice

 

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