Abe Shooter Says He Should Not Have Lived until Now

Nara, Nov. 20 (Jiji Press)–Tetsuya Yamagami, on trial for the 2022 murder of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said in Nara District Court on Thursday that he should not have lived to his current age of 45, given the consequence of his action and the significant trouble he has caused. Yamagami was answering questions in court for the first time on the day. During the first court hearing of his lay-judge trial on Oct. 28, he pleaded guilty, saying that the charges against him were “all true.” Yamagami is charged with killing Abe with a homemade gun in the western city of Nara. On Thursday, the defense asked Yamagami about his childhood. When asked about his mother, a follower of the Unification Church, the defendant said that she was “basically not a bad person, but there were many things I couldn’t understand about her involvement with the Unification Church.” According to the defense’s opening statement, Yamagami decided to attack the religious group after his older brother committed suicide in 2015. He was unable to attack a senior group official, so he targeted Abe, believing that the former prime minister was close to the group. “Things would have been fine had she not made such large donations (to the religious group),” he said. Yamagami said that his mother went bankrupt in 2002 after donating a total of 100 million yen, and that he learned this two years later. He added that his mother seemed to be in shock because she believed her donations would save her. While serving in the Maritime Self-Defense Force, Yamagami ignored his mother’s phone calls for help, according to the defendant. “My refusal to meet her expectations made her feel a sense of failure, both religiously and financially,” he said. Regarding his attempted suicide, Yamagami explained that he was “sick of being forced to play the role of a father.” Although the Unification Church began refunding some donations following the suicide attempt, Yamagami criticized the group for limiting refunds to “the extent that people don’t struggle and ask for full refunds.” Attention is being paid to whether and to what extent the court will take into account the religious group’s impact on Yamagami’s life when sentencing him. During the trial, Yamagami’s mother and younger sister have testified about his family environment during his childhood. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]