S Korea may charge two over opposition attack

SEOUL, May 22 (Reuters) South Korea may charge an assailant who slashed the face of the opposition leader at a campaign rally with attempted murder after consulting doctors, a senior prosecutor said today.

Grand National Party (GNP) chairwoman Park Geun-hye, seen as a likely candidate for the 2007 presidential election, was cut on the cheek with a box cutter while campaigning on Saturday for May 31 local polls and is recovering from surgery.

Physicians said the 11-cm (4.3-inch) long cut barely missed an artery behind her jaw bone, slicing through the salivary gland and facial muscles, meaning Park will be unable to speak normally or chew for several weeks. She will be permanently scarred.

There has been an outpouring of public outrage and sympathy for Park, who is recuperating in Seoul's Severance Hospital.

The ruling Uri Party, which is trailing badly in polls for the local elections, expressed regret and wished Park a speedy recover but warned the opposition against trying to gain political mileage.

''The insinuation at (a GNP) party meeting that the Uri Party might be involved shows the intention to use the assault for political purposes,'' Uri Party spokesman Woo Sang-ho told reporters. ''It is regrettable.'' Lee Seung-ku, a senior prosecutor on the case, told a news conference prosecutors would seek to formally arrest the main suspect, Ji Choong-ho, on charges of criminal assault and possibly attempted murder after talking to Park's doctors.

Lee said Ji, who was detained along with another man after the attack, had a criminal record and history of assault.

Prosecutors would also seek to formally arrest Park Jong-ryol, 54, who was being questioned after being detained at the scene of the attack, Lee said.

He did not say what charges may be made against Park Jong-ryol, who was arrested close to the scene shouting anti-GNP slogans, according to GNP officials.

''We plan to seek arrest warrants for both of them by 7 p.m.

(1000 GMT),'' Lee told a news conference. Under South Korean law, a suspect can be detained for questioning for up to two days before formal arrest is sought.

Ji and Park, a card-carrying member of the Uri Party, have denied they had conspired for the assault, Lee said. The Uri Party said it would terminate Park's party membership.

TRAGIC FAMILY HISTORY Photographs and video footage of the assault have shocked South Koreans and brought back memories of the violent and untimely deaths of Park's parents.

Her father and former president, Park Chung-hee, was shot dead by his disgruntled spy chief in 1979. His wife, Yuk Yong-soo, had been killed five years earlier by a stray bullet meant for him.

The smiling GNP leader was wading through a crowd of supporters and climbing the steps to a podium when a hand shot up from her right and swung across her cheek. Her expression hardened as her hands went up in reflex to cover the wound.

She was rushed to a nearby hospital on Saturday as party officials and security guards overpowered her assailant.

President Roh Moo-hyun has ordered a thorough investigation of the assault.

Park said there should be no assumption of a political motive behind the assault, the GNP said in a statement, but the party leadership called it a ''premeditated attempt'' on her life.

REUTERS CH RK1232