Seoul — South Korea’s tough-speaking liberal opposition chief, Lee Jae-myung, was once stabbed within the neck by means of an unidentified knife-wielding guy right through a consult with Tuesday to the southeastern town of Busan, police mentioned. Lee, 59 and the pinnacle of the principle opposition Democratic Birthday celebration, was once taken to a close-by health center for remedy. Police and emergency officers mentioned he was once aware and wasn’t in important situation, however his actual standing was once unknown.
The assault came about when Lee walked via a crowd of newshounds and others after completing a excursion of the web page of a brand new airport in Busan. The attacker, posing as a supporter, approached Lee, announcing he sought after to get his autograph, after which stabbed Lee within the neck with a knife, in keeping with Busan police.
Click on right here to view similar media.
click on to enlarge
Lee slumped to the bottom, the place an individual pressed a handkerchief to his neck to prevent the bleeding. A witness, Jin Jeong-hwa, instructed YTN tv that Lee bled so much.
On this handout symbol supplied by means of The Busan Day-to-day Information, Lee Jae-myung, chief of the principle opposition Democratic Birthday celebration, lies down after he was once attacked by means of an assailant right through a consult with to the development web page of an airport, Jan. 2, 2024 in Busan, South Korea.
The Busan Day-to-day Information/Getty
Movies circulated on social media confirmed the suspect, dressed in a paper crown studying “I am Lee Jae-myung,” being chased and tackled by means of a number of folks.Police mentioned officials arrested the person at the spot. Throughout wondering, he refused to spot himself or say why he attacked Lee, in keeping with Yonhap information company.Lee’s Democratic Birthday celebration known as the incident “a terrorist assault on Lee and a significant danger to democracy.” It known as on police to make a via, swift investigation of the incident.Birthday celebration spokesperson Kwon Chil-seung instructed journalists at Pusan Nationwide College Sanatorium that Lee’s jugular vein was once believed to were broken and there was once fear over the huge quantity of bleeding. He mentioned Lee was once being airlifted to a health center in Seoul for surgical treatment.
Sanatorium officers would now not touch upon Lee’s situation.President Yoon Suk Yeol expressed deep fear about Lee’s well being and ordered government to research the assault, announcing such violence would now not be tolerated, in keeping with Yoon’s workplace.Lee misplaced the 2022 presidential election to Yoon by means of 0.7 share level, the narrowest margin ever recorded in a South Korean presidential election.
Lee Jae-myung, chief of the Democratic Birthday celebration of Korea enters Seoul Plaza, the memorial web page for 2022 Itaewon crisis sufferers, right through a memorial match at the first anniversary, Oct. 29, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.
Chris Jung/NurPhoto/Getty
Since his election defeat, Lee has been a harsh critic of Yoon’s main insurance policies. Remaining 12 months, Lee introduced a 24-day starvation strike to protest what he known as Yoon’s failure to oppose Japan’s free up of handled radioactive wastewater from its crippled Fukushima nuclear energy, his mishandling of the rustic’s post-pandemic economic system and his hardline insurance policies on North Korea.Lee faces an array of corruption allegations, together with one who he supplied illegal favors to a non-public investor that reaped large earnings from a doubtful housing challenge within the town of Seongnam, the place Lee was once mayor for a decade till 2018. Lee has denied felony wrongdoing and accused Yoon’s govt of pushing a political vendetta.
Remaining September, a South Korean court docket denied an arrest warrant for Lee over the allegations, announcing there wasn’t a transparent chance that he would ruin proof. The court docket listening to was once organized after South Korea’s opposition-controlled parliament voted to raise Lee’s immunity to arrest, a transfer that mirrored rising divisions inside of his Democratic Birthday celebration over his felony troubles.Lee, who served as governor of Gyeonggi province, which surrounds Seoul, is understood for his outspoken taste. His supporters see him as an anti-elitist hero who may reform established order politics, get rid of corruption and resolve rising financial inequality. Critics view him as a deadly populist who depends on stoking divisions and demonizing his conservative warring parties.Lee may be identified for his self-made good fortune tale. He labored in a manufacturing unit as a boy, an enjoy that left him with an arm incapacity. He later made his personal method via college and handed the rustic’s notoriously tricky bar examination to paintings as a human rights attorney.Lee joined a predecessor of the Democratic Birthday celebration in 2005. Up to now a political outsider, he rose sharply amid public anger over an explosive 2016-17 corruption scandal that at last resulted in the ouster of then conservative President Park Geun-hye.
Trending Information
