Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon said Monday that the use of force by police and the general public when confronting a suspect harming or threatening to harm people’s lives and bodies should be considered self-defense.
Han’s remarks come after Thursday night’s deadly knife attack in a department store in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, and the stabbing incident near Sillim Station, in Seoul’s Gwanak-gu, in July, which left a total of two dead and 16 people injured.
Han said that what have been called “mudjima,” or “don’t ask why” attacks -- those in which perpetrators have no direct motive or previous connection to the victims -- have triggered public anxiety, and urged the prosecution to swiftly review the justification for the use of force as self-defense in the process of arresting violent offenders of heinous crimes.
On Monday afternoon, the police revealed the identity of the suspect in last week’s stabbing and vehicle rampage as 22-year-old male Choi Won-jong.
The suspect’s identity was disclosed under the public’s right to know, according to the police after a committee meeting with outside experts.
Following the back-to-back stabbing rampages, a stream of threats of terrorism and other copycat crimes continued, keeping the public on high alert.
People were swept up in a false alarm late Sunday night after a passenger on a subway car on Seoul Metro’s Line No. 9 heading toward Gimpo Airport Station reported a “strange smell” and that people were “running around and falling.”
According to fire authorities and police, however, reports of what initially appeared to be an act of terrorism at a Seoul subway station that caused people to evacuate at Sinnonhyeon Station and disrupted subway operations were false.
Although the exact cause of the false alarm remains unknown, screams of boy band BTS’ fans who took the subway after a concert by Suga at KSPO Dome in Songpa-gu, Seoul on Sunday also caused concern, according to reports. Fans reportedly screamed while watching a livestream video of Suga showing off his tattoo.
Seven passengers sustained bruises and wounds while rushing down the stairs while attempting to evacuate from Sinnonhyeon Station. Among them, firefighter officials said six were sent to the hospital for treatment for light injuries.
At around the same time, another report was filed with the police that a passenger was creating a disturbance inside another subway station -- the name of which was not disclosed -- although no evidence was found afterward.
As of Monday at 7 a.m., the Korean National Police Agency’s National Office of Investigation said they had counted 187 online murder threats. The authors of 59 of the threats have been apprehended, while three have been arrested.
Among those caught was a Navy private in Busan, who has been handed over to the military police for threatening to kill people in Seomyeon, a central commercial neighborhood in the city. A teen who had uploaded a post saying he would stab people at Gyeyang Station in Incheon was also caught. An elementary school student in Ulsan was caught on Monday at around noon after his father reported to police that his son had uploaded an inappropriate post online.
Jeju International Airport is also tracking down an individual who uploaded a post online late Sunday night threatening to “launch a bombing attack on the airport at two o’clock on Monday.”
The individual claimed that the bomb had been installed at the airport, and threatened to brandish knives and kill people coming out of the airport. No explosives were found at the site after two hours of inspection, according to police.
In light of the recent stabbing attacks, police said they would apply charges of premeditated murder if any of the authors of the online threats are found to have prepared to carry out a specific crime.
