Chinese charged with arson attack on Japan embassy

SEOUL—South Korean prosecutors Friday brought charges against a Chinese man accused of hurling petrol bombs at the Japanese embassy in Seoul because his grandmother was forced into wartime sex slavery.

The 38-year-old surnamed Liu was charged with attempted arson, prosecutors at the Seoul central district office said.

Liu has been in custody since January 8 after throwing four petrol bombs at the mission, leaving burn marks on the outer wall.

The man also claimed responsibility for an arson attack which caused minor damage at Japan’s controversial Yasukuni shrine last month. He said his late maternal grandmother — a Korean — was forced to work in Japanese army brothels in China.

Liu is from China’s southern city of Guangzhou and entered South Korea last month via Japan on a tourist visa.

About 200,000 females from Korea, China, the Philippines and other countries, known euphemistically as “comfort women”, were drafted to work in Japanese army brothels, according to historians.

Japan insists the issue was legally settled almost four decades ago but is coming under new pressure from South Korea to compensate elderly victims before the last of them die.

The Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo is dedicated to 2.5 million Japanese killed in wars — including top World War II criminals — and is often seen as a symbol of the country’s wartime aggression.

Liu told Seoul police he attacked the embassy because he was angry at the Japanese government’s refusal to deal with the issue of comfort women.

He also claimed his maternal great-grandfather had been tortured to death by Japanese police after campaigning against Tokyo’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean peninsula, Yonhap news agency said.