Security camera footage shows Ambassador Peter Lescouhier’s wife Xiang Xueqiu lashing out after being wrongly accused of shoplifting
Angry social media users have demanded the ambassador be recalled, while some have highlighted Xiang’s Chinese ancestry
Security camera footage showing the wife of the Belgian Ambassador to South Korea slapping a shopkeeper after being mistaken for a shoplifter has prompted an angry response on social media.
Websites have been flooded with calls for Ambassador Peter Lescouhier and his wife Xiang Xueqiu to leave the country over the incident at a clothes shop in Seoul on April 9, which has sparked a police investigation.
The video footage, released by the shopkeeper, shows Xiang pulling an employee around by the arm and hitting her on the back of her head. When the shopkeeper steps between the two to calm them down, Xiang slaps her in the face.
The 63-year-old Xiang’s blow left the shopkeeper, 33, with a swollen face and a bloodshot eye.
The shopkeeper said she had received no apology from Xiang and was releasing the footage to prevent similar incidents occurring to other shopkeepers.
Moments before the altercation, Xiang had been browsing in the shop and had left without buying anything. One of the shop’s employees mistakenly thought Xiang had walked out without paying as her jacket looked similar to one being sold at the shop and she pursued Xiang. When the worker realised her mistake she apologised, but the ambassador’s wife came back into the shop and became angry.
The shopkeeper said that police later told her that as Xiang was an ambassador’s wife “she could get away with it because of diplomatic immunity”.
Diplomats and their family members are usually not subject to prosecution under the laws of their host country.
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