South Korean opposition leader recovering in hospital after stabbing

Police in the southern city of Busan on Tuesday arrested a man in his sixties after he attacked Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung with a knife. Lee, 59, was visiting the site of a future airport when the assailant attacked him and managed to cut Lee on the left side of his neck before police arrested him, said Democratic Party spokesman Kwon Chil-seung. Lee underwent vein reconstruction surgery at Seoul National University Hospital and was recovering Tuesday in an intensive care unit, Kwon said. Politically liberal, Lee is a former provincial governor and narrowly lost the 2022 election to ​​conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

What was the motive? Police have not identified the suspect and are still trying to identify a motive, said Busan police official Son Je-han. The Democratic Party called the incident a terror attack, and President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned the violence. Prosecutors plan to charge the attacker with attempted murder, according to Yonhap news agency.

Dig deeper: Listen to Carolina Lumetta’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about North Korean defectors who found healing in the gospel.