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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》US envoy to Seoul knifed by attacker
US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert, center, leaves the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul yesterday after being attacked by a knife-wielding assailant during a breakfast forum. Photo: EPA
NATIONALIST PROTEST: Ambassador Lippert underwent surgery and needed 80 stitches in his face, but later sent a Twitter message saying that he was in good spirits
/ Reuters, SEOUL
US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert underwent two-and-a-half hours of surgery after he was slashed in the face by a Korean nationalist in an attack at a breakfast forum in Seoul yesterday to discuss Korean reunification.
Lippert, 42, was bleeding from deep wounds to his face and wrist, but was able to walk after the attack. Doctors said his condition was stable after “very successful” surgery that required 80 stitches in his face.
The assailant was caught and identified by police as 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong.
In 2010, Kim tried to attack the Japanese ambassador to South Korea by throwing a piece of concrete and was given a suspended jail term, according to police.
The attack on Lippert was a protest against joint military exercises by South Korean and US troops, which Kim said interfered with reconciliation between North and South Korea, according to police following an interrogation.
Witnesses and police said Kim used a small fruit knife in the attack, which took place in a government arts center across the street from the heavily guarded US embassy on the South Korean capital’s main ceremonial thoroughfare.
“We strongly condemn this act of violence,” US Department of State spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
US President Barack Obama called Lippert to wish him a speedy recovery, a White House official said.
The assailant was dressed in traditional Korean clothing and shouted that North and South Korea should be reunited just before he attacked Lippert.
He also shouted that he opposed “war exercises,” a reference to the annual joint US-South Korean military drills that began this week.
“I carried out an act of terror,” Kim shouted as he was pinned to the floor by people at the event.
Kim said while in police custody he had acted alone.
“The guy comes in... He yells something, goes up to the ambassador and slashes him in the face,” Michael Lammbrau of the Arirang Institute think tank said.
“The ambassador fought him from his seat... There was a trail of blood behind him,” Lammbrau said.
Doctors at Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital said they treated Lippert for an 11cm gash on the right side of his face and a puncture wound on his left wrist, causing nerve damage that was repaired.
He will be hospitalized for three or four days, they said.
“Doing well & in great spirits!,” Lippert tweeted after his surgery.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency described the attack as “deserved punishment for the warmongering United States,” calling it “the knife of justice” that it said reflected the anger of South Koreans opposed to the joint military exercises.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
Activists from a conservative and pro-US group hold posters bearing messages to US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert in front of a Seoul hospital where he is being treated after he was slashed in the face and left arm yesterday morning. Photo: Reuters
