Man accused of attacking opposition politician in South Korea

A man who is thought to have stabbed the opposition leader of South Korea was officially arrested for trying to kill him.

Kim, a man in his 60s, was caught by the police right after the attack and taken into custody.

Lee Jae-myung, the politician, is no longer in intensive care.

Lee got stabbed in the neck with a camping knife in the southern city of Busan. The attacker pretended to be someone asking for an autograph.

A doctor who operated on Lee said that he is getting better after the surgery. The surgery fixed a big blood vessel in his neck.

Professor Min Seung-kee said that he needs to keep an eye on the person because they are worried about them getting more infections or having problems after their surgery because of the injury they had.

It’s still not clear why the attack happened. Kim told reporters that he gave an eight-page note to the police explaining why he did it.

He also told the police that he planned to kill Lee, according to the Yonhap news agency.

The police found out that he had been following Lee since June last year, according to Yonhap.

Kim has strong political beliefs and purchased the knife on the internet. The police arrested the suspect, so they can keep holding him.

The stabbing surprised the country and made people wonder if important politicians are safe. Both Lee’s party and the country’s ruling party disapproved of it.

South Korea has very strict rules about owning guns and other weapons. Most important people usually do not have a lot of security protection.

The crime rate in the country is usually not very high, but there were more mass stabbing attacks last year. In the past, there have been many times when politicians were attacked with weapons.

Lee leads the main opposition party in Korea. He wants his party to win the most seats in the parliament in the April elections. He lost the presidential elections in 2022 by a very small amount of votes and wants to make a comeback. Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative party won the presidential elections.