Gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe He pleaded guilty Tuesday, three years after the daylight murder shocked the world.
The killing forced a reckoning in a country with little experience in gun violence and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secret sect, the Unification Church.
“It’s all true” Tetsuya Yamagami he said in a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to the assassination of the country’s longest-serving leader in July 2022.
“There is no doubt that I have done all this,” Yamagami added, according to the Japan Times.
The 45-year-old man was taken into the room in handcuffs with a rope around his waist.
When the judge asked him to say his name, Yamagami, who was wearing a black T-shirt and had his long hair tied back, responded in a barely audible voice.
His attorney said they would contest certain charges, including violations of gun control laws for allegedly using a handmade weapon.
More than 700 people lined up to be one of 32 allowed in a drawing to sit in the courtroom’s public gallery for the trial, the The Japan Times reported.
Yamagami pleaded guilty on the same day that two of Abe’s former allies, current Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and US President Donald Trump, visiting the country, met in tokyo.
Yamagami’s trial had been a long time coming after the discovery of a suspicious object, later found to be harmless, led to its last-minute cancellation and the evacuation of the Nara court building in 2023.
A central issue in the case was whether extenuating circumstances applied due to Yamagami’s childhood “religious abuse” stemming from his mother’s extreme devotion to the Unification Church, according to Japanese media reports.
In a recent interview with TBS News, cited by Japan TimesHe said his faith became even stronger after his son murdered Abe.
Prosecutors told the court that Yamagami began to build up resentment toward the church, which he said derailed his life.
“He began to think he needed a weapon” to attack church executives, but when he couldn’t get one, “he decided he had to make one himself,” a prosecutor said.
Katsuhiko Hirano/AP
Yamagami “thought he could draw public attention to the church… if he killed someone as influential as Abe,” the prosecutor said.
Some Japanese expressed sympathy for Yamagami, especially those who also We suffer as children of followers of the Unification Church.which is known for pressuring its followers to make large donations and is considered a cult in Japan.
The former prime minister had spoken at events organized by some church groups and received some criticism for doing so.
“Life was ruined by the church”
Yamagami reportedly resented Abe for his alleged ties to the Church, which was established in South Korea in 1954 and whose members are nicknamed “Moonies” after its founder Sun Myung Moon.
The Church has been accused of encouraging child abandonment among its members and exploiting them financially, something it denies.
Yamagami’s lawyers said Tuesday that her life collapsed because of the cult, and her mother was convinced that “throwing all her money and assets into the Church will save her family” after her husband’s suicide and the illness of one of her sons.
In the end, he donated about 100 million yen ($1 million at the time) to the sect, the lawyer said.
Yamagami gave up pursuing higher education and joined the military, while his mother declared bankruptcy, according to the lawyer.
He also attempted suicide in 2005.
“He began to think that his whole life had been ruined by the church,” the lawyer said.
Investigations after Abe’s assassination led to cascading revelations about close ties between the Church and many conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, prompting the resignation of four ministers.
Earlier this year, the Tokyo District Court issued a dissolution order for the Japanese arm of the Church, saying it caused “unprecedented damage” to the society.
Nobuki Ito/AP 
The killing was also a wake-up call for a nation with some of the strictest gun controls in the world.
Gun violence is so rare in Japan that security officials at the scene failed to immediately identify the sound made by the first gunshot and came too late to Abe’s rescue, according to a police report after the attack.
The debacle led lawmakers to pass a bill in 2024 that further strengthens gun controls to prevent people from making homemade weapons.
Under the new rules, uploading tutorial videos on firearm manufacturing and disseminating information about gun sales on social media can result in a fine or imprisonment of up to one year.
