South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck today as he spoke to journalists in the southeastern port city of Busan.
The Yonhap news agency reported it, adding that the attacker was a man who was arrested on the spot by the police. Transported to hospital about 20 minutes after the attack, the politician was conscious but with ongoing bleeding.
Lee was walking through a crowd of reporters after visiting the site of a new airport when the assailant pushed his way forward and lunged at him, striking him in the neck, footage broadcast on South Korean television channels showed. The South Korean opposition leader then collapsed to the ground as people rushed to help him and a man began pressing a handkerchief to his neck. The attacker was blocked by police officers and some passers-by. Head of the Democratic Party of Korea (Deominju), Lee lost to conservative Yoon Suk-yeol in a tough presidential race in 2022. A former child worker who suffered a workplace accident as a school dropout as a teenager, Lee avoided a arrest in September when a court rejected the prosecution’s request to place him in custody pending trial on various corruption charges. He is still on trial in connection with a company suspected of illicitly transferring $8 million to North Korea.