The suspect in recent bomb threats to the president and her confidant arrived in Korea on Tuesday afternoon for questioning, police said. He was reportedly residing in Europe.
The 20-something man arrived in Korea around 4 p.m. for questioning about making bomb threats, according to Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency.
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| Tourists take photographs with Cheong Wa Dae in the background on Jan. 25, the day the bomb threat was made. (Yonhap) |
The suspect was confirmed Monday as the son of an aide to the National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa, who later resigned. He called Cheong Wa Dae’s civil affairs office Sunday around 2:39 a.m. and threatened to bomb the place.
“If you do not show me your willingness by noon, I will blow up Cheong Wa Dae,” he said in his message, but did not elaborate on what he meant by “willingness.”
He made similar threats on Jan. 17 on Twitter, saying he will bomb the residence of President Park Geun-hye and her Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon.
His motives are unclear as of now, but he is believed to have a history of mental illness.
The suspect was accompanied by his father, who on Friday submitted his resignation and headed to France to talk his son into facing authorities here. His father was a Grade-4 assistant at the assembly speaker’s office, and was in charge of arranging external events.
Investigators have yet to definitively comment on how plausible the suspect’s threat was, but said he was “very little possibility” that he would have been able to carry out the bombing.
The suspect left for France on Jan. 13 without his parents’ knowledge, and is unlikely to have had time to prepare the supposed attack. While Kang specified the time of attack in each of his threats, nothing actually occurred at the cited time.
“As of now, the bomb threats appear to have been a simple prank with no possibility of being carried out. But we cannot conclusively say so unless we’ve questioned him,” said a police official. Investigators are planning to ask Kang about his motives, whether there are any accomplices, his reasons for going to France and what he did there.
By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)
