Former President Kim Young-sam is in intensive care with symptoms pneumonia, his son said Saturday.

The 86-year-old Kim was admitted to Seoul National University Hospital on April 5 with a high fever and symptoms of a cold.

“His recovery is slow due to his age,” his son Kim Hyun-chul wrote on Saturday night on his webpage, indicating the former president was still in serious condition. Kim served as president from 1993-1997. Born in 1927 on Geoje Island off the south coast near Busan, Kim was first elected to the National Assembly in 1954, and served nine terms as a representative for constituencies in Geoje and Busan.

Along with the late President Kim Dae-jung, he was a pro-democracy leader who struggled against the military-backed administrations of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan from the 1960s to the ’80s.

(596story@heraldcorp.com)