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The person who stabbed South Korea\u2019s opposition chief within the neck in January, the worst assault on a politician within the nation in almost 20 years, was sentenced on Friday to fifteen years in jail.<\/p>\n
A decide in Busan, the port metropolis the place the assault occurred, discovered the person responsible of tried homicide and violating election legal guidelines. The defendant \u2014 Kim Jin-seong, an actual property agent, who was recognized by the authorities solely as Mr. Kim \u2014 has every week to enchantment the sentence and the conviction, a spokesman for the court docket mentioned.<\/p>\n
The Jan. 2 knife attack<\/a> left Lee Jae-myung, who was then the chief of South Korea\u2019s major opposition get together, bleeding from his jugular vein and despatched him to an intensive care unit. He was discharged after eight days. Mr. Lee was attacked whereas making his method by means of a crowd after touring the location of a deliberate airport.<\/p>\n The police mentioned Mr. Kim, who was born in 1957 and lived in Asan, a metropolis south of Seoul, had planned the attack for months<\/a> and had stalked Mr. Lee at earlier rallies. They mentioned Mr. Kim, who had written an eight-page manifesto, wished to make sure that Mr. Lee by no means grew to become president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The assault on Mr. Lee, a liberal who narrowly misplaced the 2022 presidential election, shocked South Korea, the place politics have been largely peaceable because the institution of democracy within the Nineties ended an period of navy rule and political violence.<\/p>\n The assault raised alarms about deepening political polarization<\/a> and a surge in excessive on-line discourse. Days after Mr. Lee recovered from surgical procedure, a conservative member of South Korea\u2019s Nationwide Meeting, Bae Hyunjin<\/a>, was attacked in Seoul by a person who struck her within the head with a blunt object. Her accidents weren’t life-threatening.<\/p>\n The rivalry between Mr. Lee and President Yoon Suk Yeol has been a flashpoint within the nation\u2019s political tensions. Since Mr. Lee misplaced the election in 2022, prosecutors have introduced corruption costs in opposition to him. Mr. Lee has accused Mr. Yoon of deploying legislation enforcement to intimidate his political opponents, an allegation that the president has denied.<\/p>\n Mr. Lee resigned final week as chief of the opposition Democratic Celebration. He plans to hunt one other time period in that publish, and get together guidelines require a pacesetter to resign earlier than operating once more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The final main assault on a South Korean politician earlier than Mr. Lee\u2019s stabbing was in 2006, when Park Geun-hye, then an opposition chief and later the nation\u2019s president, was slashed<\/a> within the face with a field cutter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n