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January 3, 2024

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SKorean opposition leader stabbed in the neck

Source: Agencies | 13:56 UTC+8 January 3, 2024 | Print Edition

SOUTH Korean opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck during a visit to the southern city of Busan yesterday and was airlifted to Seoul after receiving emergency treatment, party and emergency officials said.

The suspect, wearing a paper crown with Lee’s name on it, approached and asked for an autograph as Lee spoke among a throng of supporters and reporters. He then lunged forward and attacked him, video footage showed.

Lee, who narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election, underwent surgery at Seoul National University Hospital and was in an intensive care unit recovering and conscious, party spokesman Kwon Chil-seung told reporters. He condemned the attack as “political terror.”

Kwon said earlier medical staff suspected damage to a jugular vein.

The attack by the assailant unfolded quickly while Lee was touring the site of a proposed airport.

Television footage and a video clip on social media platform X showed the man lunging with his arm stretched out and stabbing Lee in the neck, the force of the attack pushing Lee back into the crowd behind him.

Lee grimaced and collapsed. News photographs showed Lee lying on the ground with his eyes closed and bleeding, and people pressing a handkerchief against his neck.

A Busan police official, Son Je-han, told a news briefing the assailant was born in 1957 and used an 18-centimeter knife bought online. He did not identify the suspect and said the motive was being investigated.

Police will seek a charge of attempted murder, media said.

President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned the attack.

“This type of violence must never be tolerated under any circumstances,” his office quoted him as saying.

A former governor of Gyeonggi province, Lee narrowly lost to conservative Yoon, a former chief prosecutor, in the 2022 presidential election.

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