A man in his 70s who set fire to two buildings in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul's Gangnam district, injuring 19 people, has admitted that he sought out a specific patent agent handling his case at the time of the attacks. Asked whether he intended to kill anyone, the suspect denied it, saying he "wanted to scare them."
According to legal sources on the 22nd, Boo Dong-sik, the senior judge in charge of warrants at the Seoul Central District Court, began a pre-detention questioning of the suspect, identified as A, at 3 p.m. that day. A faces charges of arson of an occupied structure causing injury.
Leaving the Suseo Police Station at about 1:38 p.m. the same day, A answered "Yes" when reporters asked whether he had gone to see the patent agent handling his case. Asked whether he had intended to kill, he said: "Kill? I was trying to scare them. There's fraud going on, you know. I wanted to tell the world. This country is protecting fraudsters."
Asked why he set the fire in front of an elevator if his aim was only to frighten people, he repeatedly claimed he had been defrauded with forged documents, citing patents in Britain, Europe and Russia. He then pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and said, "These are the documents they used to commit the fraud."
Police have identified circumstances suggesting A carried out the attacks while searching for a specific individual, and are reviewing whether to add a charge of attempted murder. They are also seeking to obtain his medical records to determine whether he has a history of psychiatric illness, citing indications that he had shown a strong fixation on patent registration certificates.
A has long claimed that he was defrauded by a patent firm after failing to receive a physical paper registration certificate during the patent registration process, according to sources. He continued to make the claim even after an earlier police investigation concluded he had not been a victim of fraud, and had hung several paper certificates in his home, the sources said.
A is accused of setting fire to the Hanyang Building and the Shinmyung Building in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam district, where a patent firm had offices, at about 11:51 a.m. and 12:01 p.m. on the 20th of this month. The fires injured 19 people, five seriously and 14 with minor injuries.
Police applied for a detention warrant for A the previous day. They concluded that he had no fixed residence and posed a flight risk, noting that he had given notice to end the lease on his home to coincide with the day of the attacks and had recently been released from prison. Police also cited indications that he had discarded the tools used in the attacks as grounds for concern that he might destroy evidence. A ruling on whether to detain him is expected as early as that day.