Police Search Home, Offices of Suspected Attacker of South Korean Opposition Leader

Police in South Korea Wednesday raided the home and offices of the suspected attacker who stabbed and seriously wounded opposition leader Lee Jae-myung the day before.

Officers in the southeastern port city of Busan obtained a warrant to search the man’s properties in the nearby city of Asan as part of their investigation. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency says the suspected attacker has confessed to trying to kill Lee, and that police in Busan will charge the attacker with attempted murder. No motive has been given for the attack.

Yonhap identified the suspect as a 67-year-old man named Kim who operates a real estate agency in Asan, but has been having serious financial difficulties for several months.

Lee, the 59-year-old leader of South Korea’s Democratic Party, is recuperating in an intensive care unit at Seoul National University Hospital after undergoing a two-hour surgery to repair the jugular vein in his neck.

Lee was meeting with reporters at the construction site of a new airport when the man, wearing a paper crown with Lee’s name printed on it, approached him and asked for an autograph. Videos posted online showed Lee smiling shortly before the man plunged a large knife into the left side of Lee’s neck.

A bystander pressed a handkerchief to Lee’s neck to stop the bleeding before he was rushed to Pusan National University Hospital. He was later airlifted to Seoul National University Hospital for surgery after doctors expressed concern about potential massive bleeding around his jugular vein.

The liberal lawmaker narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election to conservative Yoon Suk Yeol. A spokesman for President Yoon quoted the president as saying, “This type of violence must never be tolerated under any circumstances.” The spokesman says President Yoon has ordered an investigation and instructed that Lee be given the best care available.

A spokesman for the Democratic Party called the incident “a terrorist attack” and “a serious threat to democracy.”

Police searched the offices of both the Democratic Party and Yoon’s People Power Party Wednesday to find out if the suspected attacker was affiliated with either group. The attack occurred more than three months before elections in which Yoon’s party hopes to regain control of the legislature for the first time since 2016.

Lee is a polarizing figure in South Korean politics. In September, he ended a 24-day hunger strike to protest what he saw as the failed policies of his rival, Yoon, and is considered to be a leading candidate to succeed the president when Yoon’s single term expires in 2027.

Last year, South Korean prosecutors indicted Lee on corruption-related charges, including those related to a property development scandal. He avoided jail after a court rejected a warrant for his arrest.

Lee is known for his populist policies. As a former mayor of Gyeonggi, South Korea’s most populous province that surrounds Seoul, Lee advocated a form of universal basic income, in which citizens were to receive regular payments of money from the government.

Political violence in South Korea has been rare in recent decades, although attacks have occasionally occurred.

In 2022, Song Young-gil, then Democratic Party leader, was attacked by an elderly man with a hammer while campaigning just two days before the election.

In 2006, former conservative party leader Park Geun-hye, who would later become president, was attacked by a man with a box cutter at a rally in Seoul.

Her father, authoritarian President Park Chung-hee, was assassinated in 1979 by his own chief of the country’s intelligence agency.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.