Chinese held after attack on Japan’s Seoul embassy

SEOUL – South Korean police on Sunday detained a Chinese man accused of throwing petrol bombs at the Japanese embassy in Seoul after reportedly claiming his grandmother was forced into wartime sex slavery.

The 38-year-old Chinese man threw four molotov cocktails at the Japanese embassy on Sunday morning, leaving burn marks on part of the outer wall, Seoul police told AFP.

“He was taken into custody immediately. Investigations are underway over why he did that,” a police detective said, adding that nobody was hurt in the attack.

The Chinese man hailed from the southern city of Guangzhou and entered South Korea last month via Japan on a tourist visa, police said.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the man had claimed his grandmother was one of the many “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.

Historians say that about 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines and other countries were drafted to work in Japanese army brothels.

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