SEOUL, South Korea?A hospital here on Tuesday removed a life-support system from a comatose patient, officials said, upholding a court ruling which approved a euthanasia request for the first time in the country.

A spokesman for Seoul's Severance Hospital told AFP it removed a respirator?the crucial life-sustaining equipment?from a 76-year-old woman in mid-morning.

It would take some time for the patient to be pronounced dead, he said.

Last month the supreme court, upholding a lower court decision, supported a request by the woman's family that she be allowed to die with dignity.

Under current law the removal of a respirator from a brain-dead patient is officially regarded as murder. But the family had said extending life using medical devices would prolong the woman's "painful and meaningless" existence.