Abe Shooter Cites Despair, Crisis as Triggers for Attack

Nara, Nov. 25 (Jiji Press)–Tetsuya Yamagami, on trial for the 2022 murder of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said in court Tuesday that he felt despair and a sense of crisis over Abe’s video message in 2021 to a group affiliated with the Unification Church, against which he reportedly had a grudge. During the 11th hearing of his lay-judge trial at Nara District Court, the 45-year-old said he believed the late prime minister had a long-standing relationship with the controversial religious group, ever since Abe, then the country’s chief cabinet secretary, sent a congratulatory telegram to the group in 2006. Yamagami said he heard a Unification Church official say at the time that Abe was on the side of the group. “I felt (the Unification Church) would be increasingly accepted by society because he (Abe) was a very long-serving prime minister,” the defendant said. “From the victim side’s perspective, it was very frustrating and unacceptable.” Yamagami said he knew that many members of Abe’s second administration, launched in 2012, had participated in Unification Church-linked events. He said that it was “very bad” for lawmakers to take part in the group’s events. The defendant testified that he began thinking about attacking Unification Church executives after the funeral of his older brother, who committed suicide in 2015, was held in line with the group’s teachings. He mentioned his failed attempt to attack the group’s leader, Han Hak-ja, with a Molotov cocktail during her visit to Japan in 2019. Yamagami began considering a gun attack to avoid harming anyone other than the target. He described his homemade gun as “half toy” and “like garbage.” In response to prosecutors’ questions, the defendant explained how he came to make 10 homemade guns, revealing that he used a video game as a reference for the weapons’ pipe structure. He made up his mind to attack Abe in July 2022 or later, he added. During the trial, a lawyer from the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales has been called as a witness and noted that the network had sent a letter of protest to Abe for sending the congratulatory telegram to the Unification Church. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]