South Korean opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung , was stabbed in the neck while speaking 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.
(Unioneonline/vl)