Waking up this morning and going to The Marmot’s Hole, it seems as if the police have got their man in the Namdaemun arson case:
Police say their prime suspect — a 70-year-old man by the name of Chae — has admitted to lighting the fire that destroyed Sungnyemun Gate.
Chae is the same man who attempted to light Changgyeonggung Palace’s Munjeongjeon Hall alight in 2006. For that attempt, he was let go with a suspended sentence.
Chae stated in 2006 that he lit the fire to draw attention to a land compensation dispute involving some property of his. Police believe he lit the Sungnyemun fire for the same reason, and have confiscated a letter of his admitting as much.
Police also confiscated from his home a ladder, bag, pants, gloves and a bottle of paint thinner.
It’s lunacy, absolute lunacy. When any right-thinking person is having an argument over land compensation, their first thought is always to go and destroy their country’s number one national treasure, isn’t it?
The really sad thing is that he has attempted this before (same reason, different national treasure). At Arirang Tv they state that his 2006 sentence was suspended “after a court cited lack of evidence”, everyone involved must be kicking themselves over this.
I leave you with one of the only pictures I ever got to take of Namdaemun before it was destroyed:
