Asked for an autograph and stabbed in the neck
South Korea in shock after brutal knife attack on opposition leader
South Korea’s opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung was last night undergoing surgery after being stabbed in the neck while speaking to the media in the port city of Busan.
Lee was attacked by an unidentified man who lunged at him after asking the politician for an autograph, Yonhap news agency reported.
Lee was walking in a crowd of journalists after visiting the site of a new airport when a man in front of him lunged and struck him in the neck, footage on South Korean television channels showed.
The 59-year-old was seen collapsing to the ground as people rushed to aid him.
He was “walking to his car while talking to reporters when the attacker asked for his autograph”, a witness told local broadcaster YTN, adding that Lee was then struck with what “looked like a knife”.
Emergency responders were seen carrying Lee into an ambulance. He was later taken to a nearby hospital, before being transported to the capital Seoul for surgery.
“This is an act of terror against Lee and a serious threat to democracy that should never occur under any circumstances,” Kwon Chilseung, an MP from Lee’s Democratic Party, told reporters outside the hospital.
“As to Lee’s condition, we are waiting for the medical staff’s assessment,” he added, demanding a “thorough” police investigation into the attack.
Police in Busan said Lee suffered a “one-centimetre laceration on his neck” and that he “remains conscious and bleeding is minor”, according to South Korean news outlet Chosun Ilbo.
TV footage showed police officials wrestling the attacker to the ground. He was seen wearing a paper crown with Lee’s name on it.
Yonhap said the assailant has been arrested.
Chief of the Democratic Party, the left-leaning Lee lost in 2022 to conservative Yoon Suk Yeol in the tightest presidential race in South Korea’s history.
Yoon expressed “deep concern over the safety of Lee Jaemyung upon hearing of the attack”, his spokeswoman Kim Soo-kyung said.
“Yoon emphasised our society should never tolerate this kind of act of violence under any circumstances.”
A former child factory worker who suffered an industrial accident as a teenage school dropout, Lee rose to political stardom partly by playing up his rags-to-riches tale. He is widely expected to run for president again in 2027, and recent polls have indicated that he remains a strong contender.
But Lee’s bid for the top office has been overshadowed by a string of scandals. He avoided arrest in September when a court dismissed a request from the prosecution for him to be taken into custody pending trial on various corruption charges. He has denied all allegations against him.