The 67-year-old man who stabbed the leader of South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party in January was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a court on Friday, Yonhap news agency reported.
During a hearing at the Busan District Court, a judge said the crime, which took place ahead of the general election, posed a serious threat and was an attempt to destroy representative democracy, the Yonhap report said.
The Public Prosecution Service had demanded a 20-year prison sentence for the attacker, who gave his name as Yonhap Kim, but he did not want to give his first name.
Lee Jae-myung, who recently stepped down as leader of the Democratic Party, was stabbed in the neck in January while visiting the southern city of Busan.
Video footage shows a man wearing a paper crown with Lee’s name on it, approaching Lee and asking for his autograph, then lunging forward and stabbing him in the neck.
The attack was condemned by President Yoon Suk-yeol and politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties as an “act of terror” and a threat to democracy.
Lee’s party won a landslide victory in April’s parliamentary elections, a huge blow to President Yoon and his conservative party, but it fell just short of a supermajority.
Lee narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election and is now on trial on bribery charges that he denies.
