Kim gets lucky a 4th time?

LONDON: Kim Dae-jung was born in Mokpo in South Cholla Province on Jan. 6, 1924. At the end of the World War II, he joined a people's committee in left-wing Mokpo.

He was imprisoned by communist troops during the 1950-1953 Korean War. After the War, Kim joined the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), rising through its ranks and unsuccessfully running as the party's candidate in the 1971 elections -- winning 46 percent of the vote in his first attempt to capture the presidency. Following Park's election in 1971, Kim only escaped arrest by being abroad.

He was abducted from Tokyo in August 1973 and smuggled back to Seoul by members of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. He twice escaped assassination attempts by the ROK secret service.

In May 1980, he was arrested and sentenced to death by a military court on false charges of plotting the Kwangju insurrection.

He has spent a total of six years in prison and ten years under house arrest. Following his release in December 1982, he went into exile in the U.S., and only returned to Seoul in 1985. As President of the Peace and Democracy Party and co-leader of the UDP he respectively ran in the 1987 and 1991 presidential elections.

However, he was unable to win because the opposition vote was divided.