A 33-year-old man has been arrested in South Korea for fatally stabbing a woman and injuring another shopper inside a supermarket after reportedly drinking soju.
The man, identified only as A, was arrested on suspicion of murder on Tuesday after the stabbing spree in northern Seoul, in an incident that has sparked panic among locals.
The suspect reportedly entered the supermarket in Mia-dong and drank nearly half a bottle of soju on the spot, before removing a kitchen knife from its packaging from the store shelf and attacking two women.
One of the women, in her 60s, suffered a heart attack and succumbed at the hospital, while a store employee sustained injuries in the attack.
Surveillance footage from the scene showed panicked shoppers scrambling to flee as the victim lay bleeding on the sidewalk, according to reports.
The man, wearing hospital clothing, exited the store and called police to report himself, the Gangbuk Police Precinct said. He was arrested without resistance but allegedly asked investigators to wait so that he could finish his cigarette.
“He was so calm that no one thought he was the attacker. When police arrived and told him to stand against the wall, he said in a casual tone, ‘Wait, let me finish this cigarette.’ And the police actually waited," Lee Jae Gil, 61, who runs a butcher shop across from the supermarket, told Korea JoongAng Daily.
The police said they were looking into whether the suspect had a history of mental illness and what prompted the attack.
At a pretrial hearing on Thursday, the suspect apologised to the victim, adding that the attack was not premeditated. “I’m sorry to the victim. I’ll never do something like this again," he said.
Investigators said the suspect was admitted to a nearby hospital for a finger injury. "Since he didn’t even stay a full day, we don’t really know anything about him. If he had disclosed a mental health issue, we would have considered same-day discharge or applied special monitoring," a hospital official told the newspaper.
The incident triggered panic and fear among the locals.
“You go out to buy groceries and end up being stabbed to death by a complete stranger. It’s terrifying," a local was quoted by the Korea Herald as saying.
“This isn’t the Korea I know."
While South Korea has a low murder rate of 1.3 per 100,000 people – below the global average of six per 100,000 – the country has witnessed several high-profile violent crimes, including multiple stabbings, in recent years.
Among the violent incidents in recent months were a teacher stabbing an eight-year-old girl in the central city of Daejeon, a subway station stabbing that left one dead and three wounded, an attack on a high school teacher, and a knife-wielding assailant driving into pedestrians before attacking shoppers in Bundang.
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