Man who assassinated former Japanese prime minister gets life in prison

People offer prayers for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Zojoji temple in Tokyo, Japan, July 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, File)

TOKYO — A Japanese court sentenced a man who admitted assassinating former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to life imprisonment on Wednesday. The case has revealed decades of cozy ties between Japan’s governing party and a controversial South Korean church.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, earlier admitted to killing Abe in July 2022 as the former prime minister was giving a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

Abe, one of Japan’s most influential politicians, was serving as a regular lawmaker after leaving the prime minister’s job when he was killed in 2022 while campaigning in the western city of Nara. It shocked a natio with strict gun control.

Yamagami told investigators he was motivated by a desire to expose Japanese politicians’ ties to the Unification Church, which he blamed for encouraging his mother to neglect him during a difficult childhood.

Yamagami pleaded guilty to murder in the trial that started in October. The Nara District Court announced Wednesday that it had issued a guilty verdict and sentenced Yamagami to life in prison, as prosecutors requested.

Takashi Fujimoto, one of the defence lawyers, said the decision did not take into consideration their request for clemency based on the defendant’s difficult upbringing and was “regrettable.” He added that Yamagami’s legal team would consider an appeal after consulting with their client.

Shooter said he was motivated by hatred of a controversial church

Yamagami said he killed Abe after seeing a video message the former leader sent to a group affiliated with the Unification Church. He added that his goal was to hurt the church, which he hated, and expose its ties with Abe, investigators have said.

Prosecutors demanded life imprisonment for Yamagami, noting the seriousness of the attack and the danger it caused at a crowded campaign venue. His lawyers sought a sentence of no more than 20 years, citing his troubles as the child of a church adherent. Japanese law authorizes the death penalty in murder cases, but prosecutors do not usually request it unless at least two people are killed.

The revelation of close ties between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the church caused the party to pull back from the church. It prompted investigations into the church’s fundraising and recruiting tactics that ended with a court decision that stripped the church’s Japanese branch of its tax-exempt religious status and ordered it dissolved. The church has since appealed, pending a decision.

The killing also led the National Police Agency to increase police protection of dignitaries.

Abe was one of Japan’s most influential politicians

A political blue blood, Abe was Japan’s longest-serving postwar leader, holding power for nine years before stepping down in 2021. He led the largest faction of the governing party and forged a friendship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Abe is remembered for his arch-conservative views on security and historical issues, and was backed by right-wing groups including the Unification Church. Similar views are now represented by his protege Sanae Takaichi, who took office in October as Japan’s first female Prime Minister.

An investigation into Abe’s assassination revealed close ties between his governing party and the church, dating back to a 1960s anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

Yamagami said that as he plotted his attack, he saw Abe’s appearance in a video message shown to a meeting of church-related Universal Peace Federation.

Shooting at a crowded election campaign venue

Abe was shot on July 8, 2022, while giving a speech outside a train station in Nara. In footage captured by television cameras, two gunshots ring out as the politician raises his fist. He collapses holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood. Officials say Abe died almost instantly.

Yamagami was captured on the spot. He said he initially planned to kill the leader of the Unification Church, but switched targets to Abe because of the difficulty of getting close to the leader.

He told the court last year that he chose Abe as a figure who exemplified the connection between Japanese politics and the church, according to NHK.

Yamagami, apologized to Abe’s widow, Akie Abe, in an earlier court session, saying he had no grudge against his family and that he had no excuse to defend him, NHK said.

Yamagami won sympathy from people skeptical of church

Yamagami’s case and his descriptions of his childhood brought attention to other children of Unification Church adherents, and influenced a law meant to restrict malicious donation solicitations by religious and other groups.

Investigators said that Yamagami’s mother joined the church when he was a child, and began making massive donations that eventually drove the family to bankruptcy, as she neglected him and his two siblings.

Experts say Japanese followers have been asked to pay for “sins” committed by their ancestors during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, and that the majority of the church’s worldwide funding has come from Japan.

The church has acknowledged excessive donations but says the problem has lessened since it made changes in 2009.

Yamagami survived a suicide attempt, but his elder brother’s suicide in 2015 devastated him, apparently causing him to deepen his grudge against the church, his lawyers said.

His case captured attention on the problems of the children of the religious adherents, “but the seriousness of the damage is still not fully understood,” said Fujimoto, the lawyer.

Thousands of people signed a petition requesting leniency for Yamagami, and others have sent care packages to his relatives and the detention centre where he’s being housed.

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press