By Jung Min-ho
Kim Ki-jong, who wounded U.S. Ambassador to Korea Mark Lippert with a knife Thursday, has a criminal record for carrying out similar acts of violence.
In July 2010, he was given a suspended prison term for throwing pieces of concrete at then-Japanese envoy to Seoul Toshinori Shigeie.
He also tried to set himself on fire in 2007 in front of Cheong Wa Dae, demanding the government investigate an alleged rape that happened in 1988 at the office of a civic group he founded in 1984. Four unidentified assailants fled from the office in Seoul after purportedly raping a woman there — the case remains unsolved.
Kim founded another organization, Our Land Dokdo Islands, in 2006 to protest against Japan’s territorial claims over Korea’s easternmost islets.
When Japan’s Shimane Prefecture proclaimed “Takeshima Day” in 2005 to highlight its territorial claim to the islands, Kim and six other activists even changed the address of their family register to the islands.
Police are trying to find out why Kim suddenly changed his targets from Japanese officials to Americans.
When he was detained at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Kim shouted his opposition to the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises that started Monday.
Police found that he wrote a post Tuesday to criticize the military drills between South Korea and the U.S.
“If the two countries reduce the scale and period of the exercises, North Korea would respond accordingly,” he wrote, adding that the exercises were also to blame for North Korea cancelling plans to hold a reunion of families separated during the Korean War (1950-1953).
“The atmosphere between South Korea and North Korea was friendly at the beginning of this year but it is now frozen,” he wrote. “It seems like the conversation between the two will be difficult until the drills end in April.”
Along with other activists, Kim held a press conference in front of the U.S. Embassy here on Feb. 24 to protest against the joint military drills that are designed to deter threats from North Korea.
According to the Ministry of Unification, he visited North Korea eight times from 2006 to 2007 on a program to plant trees in Gaeseong with the ministry’s approval.