South Korean police have charged the man behind a shocking knife attack on the US ambassador with attempted murder, while investigating his possible links with North Korea.
Kim Ki-Jong, 55, also faces a charge of violence against a foreign envoy after slashing Mark Lippert with a paring knife in an assault that left the US envoy needing 80 stitches to a deep gash on his face, the Yonhap news agency said.
The profile painted of Kim is that of a lone assailant with strong nationalist views who saw the United States as one of the main obstacles to the reunification of the divided Korean peninsula.
But it also emerged that he had visited North Korea more than half-a-dozen times between 2006 and 2007, and had tried to erect a memorial to Kim Jong-Il in Seoul after the late North Korean leader's death in 2011.
Any red flags such activities may have raised were only underlined by North Korea's reaction to the attack, which the official KCNA news agency described as "just punishment" and a valid "expression of resistance" to ongoing US-South Korea joint military exercises.
Lippert's case is being handled by a special investigation team of more than 100 prosecutors and police officers led by the anti-terrorism bureau of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.
"We are investigating his possible connection with North Korea," Yoon Myung-Soon, the police chief of the central Seoul district where the attack took place, told reporters on Friday.
"We are trying to find out whether he has violated the national security law," Yoon said.
Enacted in 1948 to protect the fledgling South Korean state from infiltration by the communist North, the law prohibits the spoken or written promotion of North Korean ideology, deeming any such activity to be "anti-state" and subject to up to seven years imprisonment.
As he was moved from the police station to court on Friday, Kim was asked if he had acted on the orders of North Korea.
"No, nothing like that," he replied, saying the idea was "outrageous."
Prosecutors had said they would pursue a charge of attempted murder, given the premeditated nature of the attack.
Doctors at the hospital where Lippert underwent two-and-a-half hours of surgery said the envoy was recovering well and would have his stitches removed early next week.
There was no irreversible nerve damage to his face, although a cut to his left hand had damaged the nerves of his little finger that could take six months to repair.
Kim had received a suspended jail sentence in 2010 for hurling a rock at the Japanese ambassador.
During the assault on Lippert, Kim screamed a slogan in favour of reunifying the divided Korean peninsula, and later shouted his opposition to the joint US-South Korean military drills that began on Monday.
Share
