Cho Se-hyung, an advisor to the main opposition Democratic Party, and a former journalist and ambassador to Japan, died at the Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul, Wednesday.
He was 78. According to an aide, he suffered a stroke on June 1 and underwent surgery, but failed to regain consciousness. The stroke occurred only two days after the funeral of the late President Roh Moo-hyun.
“He seemed to have been affected hard by Roh’s death,” the aide was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency. A former managing editor of the Hankook Ilbo, a sister paper of The Korea Times, Cho was a key founder of the Kwanhun Club, a fraternity of senior journalists.
Born in Gimje, North Jeolla Province, Cho began his political career in 1979 when he was elected to the National Assembly on the ticket of a now-defunct opposition party. A funeral service will be held at the medical center Saturday before his burial in his hometown of Gimje.
Cho is survived by two sons, Sung-hun and Sung-ju, and one daughter.