The stabbing on Tuesday last week of South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was meticulously planned by a well-prepared assailant who wanted to prevent the politician from becoming president, police said yesterday.
Lee, chair of the Democratic Party, was stabbed in the neck in a near-fatal attack in Busan by a man pretending to be a supporter who pushed through a crowd to get close to him.
Lee was wounded in his jugular vein and underwent hours of emergency surgery, but he recovered well and was released from hospital yesterday, the same day that police announced the results of their investigation into his attacker.
Photo: AFP
“The suspect decided to kill Lee to prevent him from becoming president,” Busan Police Chief Woo Cheol-mun told reporters, adding that the man had been planning the attack for months.
He purchased the knife used in the attack in April and had followed Lee on five separate occasions since June, disguising himself as a supporter while waiting for an opportunity to strike.
Police said that the man’s “political beliefs” led him to commit the crime.
The suspect also had “grown disgruntled” over what he viewed as a slow pace of prosecution of Lee, who is facing multiple criminal cases.
Lee lost in 2022 to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in the tightest race in South Korea’s history.
Lee is widely expected to run for president again in 2027 and recent polls have indicated that he remains a strong contender.
However, his bid for the top office has been overshadowed by a string of scandals. He faces trial on charges of bribery in connection with a company that is suspected of illicitly transferring US$8 million to North Korea.
Lee, 60, was discharged from Seoul National University Hospital and told reporters that the attack should serve as an impetus to overhaul South Korea’s confrontational politics.
“I sincerely hope this incident could serve as a milestone to end the politics of hatred and restore a politics of respect and coexistence,” he said, his first public comments since the incident. “I myself, too, will reflect on my deeds and strive hard to create politics of hope.”
The suspect is a 66-year-old real-estate agent identified by the surname Kim who had struggled financially and had been unable to pay rent for his office for seven months, Yonhap news agency reported.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS