Tag: Kim Ki-jong

I think this guy got off light with a 12 year sentence for trying to kill US Ambassador Mark Lippert so any more time in prison the Koreans can give him the better:

 A local court on Wednesday sentenced the 56-year-old man, who attacked the top U.S. envoy to South Korea last year, to an additional 18 months in prison for assaulting prison staff.

The Seoul Central District Court found Kim Ki-jong guilty of hitting a prison officer and a surgeon when he was denied the right to go to a hospital for his ankle injury. The staff rejected Kim’s request as the injury was treatable in jail, prosecutors said.

Kim is currently serving a prison term for attacking U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert with a knife at a function in Seoul in March last year.

“The defendant denies the allegations and only emphasizes the legitimacy of his (action), without showing any remorse,” the court said.

In September, the same court sentenced the 56-year-old to 12 years in prison on a string of charges, including attempted murder.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It is going to be interesting to see what other dirt the ROK government digs up on Kim Ki-jong:

The suspected attacker of the top U.S. envoy in Seoul contacted a South Korean man previously convicted of spying for North Korea before carrying out the attack, police said Friday.

Kim Ki-jong was arrested last week on charges of slashing U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on his face and wrist with a knife during a breakfast function in downtown Seoul. The attack left Lippert with wounds that required 80 stitches.

The 55-year-old faces charges of attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction. Police said they are planning to ask the prosecutors to take over the case later in the day.

Kim has said he was acting alone. But a special task force investigating the case said the 55-year-old contacted more than 30 people — including a former spy for North Korea and a key member of a pro-North Korea organization here — in the run-up to the incident.

Kim Cheol-jun, the lead investigator from the National Police Agency, said authorities are delving further into Kim’s phone and bank transaction records to find out whether any of them had been involved.  (……….)

Police said they also believe the attack was premeditated. Kim’s Internet browsing history shows that he had looked up Lippert’s blog, his height and South Korea’s criminal law a day before the incident, according to authorities.

He also appeared to have had an intent to kill, police said. He reportedly said he brought a knife because his previous attempt to harm a Japanese ambassador to Seoul years ago failed. He also slashed Lippert at least twice, leaving deep gashes on his face and arm that required more than 80 stitches.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here is what the attacker of US ambassador Mark Lippert is saying after being interrogated by police:

A 55-year-old South Korean activist was taken into custody Friday on charges of attempting to murder the top U.S. diplomat in Seoul.

Kim Ki-jong also faces charges of violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction in the shocking attack on U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert the previous day.

Wielding a 25-centimeter fruit knife, Kim slashed the ambassador five times at a performance hall in downtown Seoul where the envoy was to give a speech. The wounds weren’t life-threatening, but the attack left a deep gash extending from the envoy’s right chin to cheek, requiring more than 80 stitches.

The Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Kim, saying “The reason and the necessity of his arrest were fully explained.”

Before entering the court for a hearing to review the legality of his arrest, Kim said he had no ties to North Korea.

“That’s nonsense,” he told reporters when asked about the police investigation into the possibility.

He denied being sympathetic to Pyongyang and having ever been to the country despite police announcements earlier to the contrary.

He also shook his head when asked if he had an intent to kill and said there was no one else involved.

Kim had previously told police officers that he plotted the attack to stop the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises that kicked off earlier this week.

The exercises are part of Seoul and Washington’s efforts to better deter threats from North Korea. Kim said he thought the drills hampered efforts to re-unify the two Koreas as they remain technically at war since the Korean War in the 1950s ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Hwang Sang-hyeon, Kim’s attorney, also said the attack was not premeditated.

In mid-February, Kim received a letter of invitation from the organizer, and it was then he decided to confront the ambassador about the joint military drills, according to Hwang.

“He hadn’t planned on bringing the knife until (Thursday) morning,” Hwang told reporters as he took from a break from police interrogation late Thursday. “He was trying to alarm the U.S. but had nothing personal against the ambassador.” [Yonhap]

Who is their right mind would invite someone like Kim Ki-jong to an event like this with the US ambassador.  This was asking for trouble. It makes me wonder if the event organizer intentionally invited Kim just to cause an incident or it was just total incompetence?

Best wishes to US Ambassador Mark Lippert as he recovers from the cowardly knife attack by a Korean leftist:

A knife attack Thursday that injured the U.S. ambassador to South Korea is the latest act of political violence in a deeply divided country where some protesters portray their causes as matters of life and death.

The slashing of Ambassador Mark Lippert’s face and arm, which left deep gashes and damaged tendons and nerves, was an extreme example, but America infuriates some leftist South Koreans because of its role in Korea’s turbulent modern history.

Washington, which backed the South during the 1950-53 Korean War against the communist North, still stations nearly 30,000 troops here and holds annual military drills with Seoul. That’s something anti-U.S. activists view as a major obstacle to their goal of an eventual reunification of the rival Koreas.

Purported U.S. interference in Korean affairs appeared to be the main grievance of the man police named as the assailant, Kim Ki-jong, 55, who has a long history of anti-U.S. protests.

“South and North Korea should be reunified,” Kim shouted as he slashed Lippert with a 25-centimeter (10-inch) knife, police and witnesses said.

The attack left a gash on Lippert’s face that started under his cheekbone and extended diagonally across his cheek toward his jawbone. He received 80 stiches to close the 11-centimeter (4-inch) wound, Chung Nam-sik of Severance Hospital told reporters. Lippert, 42, also had surgery on his arm to repair damage to tendons and nerves and was in stable condition at the hospital.  [Associated Press]

The leftist Kim Ki-jong who was involved in the attack has a long history of violence to include attacking the Japanese ambassador to Korea with a concrete block.  He says he attacked Lippert because of the ongoing US-ROK Key Resolve military exercise:

Kim is well-known among police and activists as one of a hard-core group of protesters willing to use violence to highlight their causes. Such protesters often speak of their actions in terms of a war, of a struggle to the death.

Kim told police that he attacked Lippert to protest U.S.-South Korean military drills that started Monday — exercises that the North has long maintained are preparations for an invasion. Kim said the drills, which Seoul and Washington say are purely defensive, ruined efforts for reconciliation between the two Koreas, officials at Seoul’s Jongno police station said in a televised briefing.

Here is what North Korea had to say about the attack:

North Korea’s state-controlled media later crowed that Kim’s “knife slashes of justice” were “a deserved punishment on war maniac U.S.” and reflected the South Korean people’s protests against the U.S. for driving the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war because of the joint military drills.

The real question is if any of the North Korean spies within South Korea sent Kim to conduct this attack or not?  Another question is what was the security like around the Ambassador to allow this leftist loon to get access to the Ambassador?  You would think they would have increased security for him during the Key Resolve exercise?

Also keep in mind this is the not the first political knife slashing to happen in recent years.  In 2006 current President Park Geun-hye was slashed across the face by a knife wielding man:

Image via the BBC.

Park needed 60 stitches to seal the cut.  Ambassador Lippert’s wound looks much worse.  Anyway the person convicted of slashing President Park received 11 years in jail.  I think Kim Ki-jong’s days of protesting the US are over because he will likely receive a very long sentence to send a message to these leftist loons.  South Korea also needs to take a stronger stance when people commit violent acts against the Japanese embassy in South Korea as well.  As this attack shows these loons get emboldened when they are not properly punished after committing violent acts against the Japanese embassy.