North Korea yesterday hit out at accusations that it might be behind a knife attack on US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert, branding the claims a “vicious” smear campaign by Seoul.
Kim Ki-jong slashed Lippert with a paring knife on Thursday in an assault that left the US ambassador needing 80 stitches to a deep gash on his face.
Kim, 55, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, and the police are investigating whether he has any links to North Korea.
He has reportedly told the police that he had acted alone and denied any links to North Korea, calling the suggestion “outrageous.”
Kim is reported to be a lone assailant with strong nationalist views, who sees the US as one of the main obstacles to the reunification of the divided Korean Peninsula.
However, Kim has visited North Korea seven times since 1999 and once tried to erect a memorial in Seoul to former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il after his death in 2011.
Kim Ki-jong told the police he stabbed Lippert in protest of massive US-South Korea joint army exercises currently underway.
The annual exercises are routinely slammed by North Korea as a practice for invasion.
After the attack on Thursday, North Korea called Kim Ki-jong’s act “just punishment” and a valid “expression of resistance” to the US-South Korea military drills.
However, North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea yesterday bristled at suggestions that it might have been behind the assault, calling it an attempt to defame its leadership.
“Even the police and conservative media of South Korea joined the regime in attempting to link the case with [North Korea],” it said in a statement published by state-run KCNA news agency on Saturday.
“Such moves are prompted by a vicious intention to save itself from the present awkward position ... and intensify an anti-DPRK [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] smear campaign worldwide,” the committee said.
Last week, South Korean police raided Kim Ki-jong’s house in search of evidence of his potential links to North Korea.
Police are investigating whether Kim Ki-jong violated South Korea’s notorious anti-communist national security laws, which ban unauthorized contact with North Korea or activities deemed to be praising Pyongyang.
Lippert, 42, is expected to be released from hospital as early as tomorrow, his doctors said.
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