Former President Chun Doo-hwan has been sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, for defaming a deceased activist who claimed to have witnessed shootings during the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising. 

The Gwangju District Court handed down the sentence to the 89-year-old former leader on Monday. Prosecutors had demanded 18 months behind bars.

Chun was indicted in May 2018 for allegedly making slanderous statements against the late Catholic priest Cho Bi-oh's eyewitness accounts of a bloody military suppression of pro-democracy protesters.

In his 2017 memoir, Chun labeled Cho a "liar" and "Satan" for testifying that troops in helicopters fired machine guns at civilians during the uprising.

The court acknowledged that troops did fire at citizens on board helicopters and found victims' testimonies sufficiently reliable. It said that given the appraisal by the National Forensic Service, there is reasonable ground to believe there were shootings from helicopters on May 21, 1980. 

The court urged the former president, noting he is the most responsible for the events that occurred, to sincerely apologize for the suffering and pain he caused.  

But Chun was yet again seen dozing off during the sentencing hearing.