SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korean police said Friday that they had arrested a 33-year-old jobless man for allegedly making an online threat to kill the U.S. ambassador in Seoul.
The man allegedly left an English-language message vowing to kill Mark Lippert with “nuclear poisoning” on the White House website on July 8, police said in a statement.
The man, surnamed Lee, has denied the allegation. But police say they’ve found a draft of the online threat and records of access to the White House homepage on his laptop computer, according to the statement.
The allegations come just months after Lippert was attacked by another man who slashed him with a knife during a breakfast forum. Lippert suffered deep gashes on his face and arm in that attack in March and was treated at a Seoul hospital for five days.
Police said the message, which contained many grammar errors, didn’t clearly explain why he wanted to kill Lippert. They refused to disclose the full message.