U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert is recovering faster than doctors had expected and could be released early this week, hospital officials said Monday.
Lippert’s face and wrist were slashed on Thursday by Kim Ki-jong, a South Korean extremist who says the joint military drills by South Korea and the U.S. are ruining hopes for reunification. The wounds required more than 80 stitches.
Yoon Do-heum, head of Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital, said there appeared to be few problems in Lippert’s recovery and expected him to be released as early as Tuesday afternoon.
“Doctors plan to visit Lippert’s home on Saturday (for a follow-up),” Yoon said. “He’s trying his best to get back to work as soon as possible.”
Hospital officials said Lippert was “deeply moved” by South Koreans who brought him carnations, the official flower of his home state Ohio.
Meanwhile, authorities said they are investigating the possibility that Kim may have violated South Korea’s National Security Law, which bans South Koreans from publicly supporting the North’s government.
The 55-year-old was already detained Friday on charges of attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and obstruction of business.
Yoon Myeong-seong, head of Jongno Police Station in Seoul, said investigators have discovered more than 10 books from Kim’s home and office suspected of being dangerously pro-North Korea in nature.
These books include “On the Art of Cinema,” written by late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, and printed materials explaining the North’s founding ideology of “juche,” or self-reliance.
“We’re going to find out why Kim owned these books and whether we can charge him with violating the National Security Law,” Kim Doo-hyeon, a security section chief at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, told reporters.
Kim was interrogated a day earlier and reportedly endorsed North Korea in front of the officers.
“South Korea doesn’t have a leader that compares with North Korean founder Kim Il-sung,” he was quoted as saying. “Kim was a great leader of the 20th century.”
Kim was also quoted as describing the North’s regime as “autonomous” while South Korea was dubbed a “half-colonized” country. He was presumably referring to the U.S. troops’ presence in South Korea.
Police have already discovered that Kim visited North Korea seven times between 1999 and 2007. Kim was also found to have tried to erect an altar in the heart of Seoul in memory of late leader Kim Jong-il in 2011.
Police were also working with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records on Kim’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Authorities are convinced that Kim had the intent to kill. Kim told officers he brought a knife “because he thought it would be more threatening than a piece of concrete” he hurled at a Japanese ambassador in 2010. Kim has denied the allegations.
Police said they will refer this case to the prosecution by Friday after wrapping up their investigation.
Lippert, 42, took office as the youngest U.S. ambassador to South Korea last year. His wife gave birth to a son in Seoul and the couple bestowed him with a Korean middle name. (Yonhap)
