(MENAFN- The Peninsula) South Korean police on Friday 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 separate 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.
A formal warrant for his arrest was issued and he was taken into custody in Seoul, according to Yonhap.
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 comprised of more than 100 prosecutors and police officers, and led by the anti-terrorism bureau of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.
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