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The person who stabbed the primary opposition chief of South Korea within the neck final week needed to kill him in order that he would by no means turn out to be president, the police stated, in an alarming escalation of the nation’s political polarization.
A 66-year-old man who was arrested after the assault was handed over to prosecutors on Wednesday to be formally indicted on a cost of tried homicide. The South Korean police didn’t launch his identify, however he was recognized by native information media by his surname, Kim.
The person, the police stated, had deliberate to kill Lee Jae-myung, the chief of the liberal Democratic Occasion, for months, even getting ready an eight-page manifesto and asking a good friend to launch it to family and the information media after the assault.
On Wednesday, Mr. Lee, 59, was launched from a hospital in Seoul, the capital, the place he had been recovering from surgical procedure to a jugular vein that was broken within the assault.
The assault, the worst towards a South Korean politician in almost twenty years, drew consideration to the polarization and mutual hostility between conservative and liberal South Koreans that seemed to be deepening forward of parliamentary elections scheduled for April. Mr. Lee misplaced the presidential election in 2022 to Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative, by a razor-thin margin, and he hopes to run once more in 2027.
Going through supporters and TV cameras as he left Seoul Nationwide College Hospital, Mr. Lee known as for “an finish to warlike politics the place one facet just isn’t happy till it kills the opposite facet.”
“I hope that this incident, which has shocked everybody, will probably be a milestone towards ending politics of hatred and confrontation and restoring politics of mutual respect and coexistence,” he stated.
The suspect was “pushed by his private political convictions to commit this excessive crime,” stated Woo Cheol-moon, the police chief in Busan, a port metropolis in southeastern South Korea the place the Jan. 2 assault came about.
The suspect informed investigators that he was sad with what he noticed as sluggish progress in attempting Mr. Lee, who faces corruption and different expenses. Mr. Lee has denied these expenses and has accused Mr. Yoon’s authorities of utilizing the investigations as political revenge.
By killing Mr. Lee, the person hoped to “block him from turning into president” and hinder his political allies within the upcoming parliamentary elections, Mr. Woo stated throughout a information briefing.
The suspect made comparable claims in his eight-page manifesto, whose textual content was not launched, Mr. Woo added.
The person insisted that he had acted alone, and the police stated they might discover no others concerned within the assault. However they questioned a person in his 70s who they stated was briefed by the suspect about his plan and entrusted with seven sealed envelopes that contained his manifesto and had been addressed to family and information shops. The suspect requested the person to put up his manifesto solely to his family if he did not kill Mr. Lee, the police stated. The mail was intercepted by the police earlier than it reached the family.
The police stated that the suspect had deliberate an assault for months, shopping for a tenting knife on-line in April final 12 months. He started stalking Mr. Lee in June, attending six of his political occasions across the nation, officers stated. When he approached Mr. Lee on Jan. 2, he was carrying a paper crown and carrying a hand-held signal to make him appear to be a supporter. He requested for Mr. Lee’s autograph earlier than plunging his knife into his neck, in line with live-streamed footage of the assault.
He was detained by the police on the spot.
“I’m sorry for inflicting considerations,” he informed reporters on Wednesday as he was transferred from a police station in Busan. Earlier than coming into the prosecutors’ workplace, he informed reporters that he had acted alone.
“How may I plan this with another person?” he stated.
The police didn’t disclose the suspect’s political affiliation, citing privateness rules, however stated he preferred to observe conservative YouTube channels. South Korean information media stated the suspect was a member of Mr. Yoon’s conservative Individuals Energy Occasion earlier than he shifted his membership to Mr. Lee’s Democratic Occasion final 12 months in an obvious try to achieve higher entry to his political schedules.
Mr. Yoon has condemned the knife assault as an act of “terror,” and his get together blamed it on “radicalized politics.” However Mr. Lee’s opposition get together on Wednesday accused the police of withholding particulars of the suspect’s get together affiliations to reduce the potential political fallout towards Mr. Yoon and his get together forward of the April elections.
“Whereas the police refused to reveal full information, we see the flood of faux information about this political terror reaching a harmful degree,” stated Kwon Chilseung, a spokesman of the Democratic Occasion.
Mr. Lee’s slender loss to Mr. Yoon in 2022 has solely exacerbated the political divide in South Korea, with their fervent supporters spreading hate speech and conspiracy theories towards one another on-line. After Mr. Lee was attacked, a lot of his conservative detractors unfold rumors that the episode was “faux information” and that Mr. Lee had solely suffered a minor damage from a “paper knife” or a “picket chopstick.”
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