Arrest Warrant Issued for Man in His 70s in Yeoksam-dong Building Arson Spree... Court Cites "Flight Risk"

Yonhap News Agency

A man in his 70s accused of setting fires at two buildings in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, one after the other and injuring 19 people has been arrested.

At 3 p.m. on October 22, Judge Boo Dong-sik, who handles arrest warrant cases at the Seoul Central District Court, began questioning the suspect, identified only as a man in his 70s and referred to as A, before his arrest on suspicion of arson causing injury at an occupied building. The judge issued an arrest warrant after the hearing, citing “concerns that he may flee.”

A is accused of setting fire to the third floor of Shinmyeong Building at around 11:54 a.m. on October 20, then setting fire to the fourth floor of Hanyang Building seven minutes later, at 12:01 p.m., injuring a total of 19 people. He was arrested by police shortly after the crimes and was taken into custody two days later.

One of the injured, a patent attorney, was reportedly taken to a hospital in cardiac arrest and is receiving treatment.

Both locations where the fires broke out were offices of patent law firms. Police believe A committed the crimes out of resentment, suspecting that the patent law firm had defrauded him during the process of registering his patent.

As A arrived at court that day for the warrant hearing, reporters asked whether he had intended to kill anyone. He replied, “Why would I want to kill anyone? I was trying to scare them.” He added, “I set the fires to let the world know about the people who commit fraud,” and claimed, “This country protects fraudsters.”

It was confirmed that A had previously been convicted of attempting to set fire to two offices of the same patent law firm four years ago and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

Police are also looking into whether A has a history of mental illness, based on evidence including that he appeared fixated on paper patent registration certificates. The Seoul Suseo Police Station has also obtained a statement that A was looking for a specific person just before setting the fires and is considering whether to add attempted murder charges.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.