A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment a person who admitted to assassinating former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The case has revealed a long time 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 previous prime minister was giving a campaign speech within the western city of Nara.
Abe, certainly one of Japan’s most influential politicians, was serving as a daily lawmaker after leaving the prime minister’s job when he was killed. It shocked a nation with strict gun control.
Yamaguchi told investigators he was motivated by a desire to show 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 within the trial that began 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, certainly one of the defence lawyers, said the choice didn’t take into accounts 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 previous leader sent to a gaggle affiliated with the Unification Church. He added that his goal was to harm 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 not more than 20 years, citing his troubles because the child of a church adherent.
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Japanese law authorizes the death penalty in murder cases, but prosecutors don’t normally request it unless a minimum of two individuals are killed.
The revelation of close ties between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the church caused the party to drag 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 call.
The killing also led the National Police Agency to extend police protection of dignitaries.
Abe was certainly 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 biggest 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 at the moment are 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 Nineteen Sixties anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.
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 because the politician raises his fist. He collapses holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood. Officials say Abe died almost immediately.
Yamagami was captured on the spot. He said he initially planned to kill the leader of the Unification Church, but switched targets to Abe due to the problem of getting near the leader.
He told the court last yr that he selected Abe as a figure who exemplified the connection between Japanese politics and the church, based on 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 limit malicious donation solicitations by religious and other groups.
Investigators said that Yamagami’s mother joined the church when he was a toddler, and started 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 vast majority of the church’s worldwide funding has come from Japan.
The church has acknowledged excessive donations but says the issue has lessened because 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 issues of the youngsters of the religious adherents, “however the seriousness of the damage remains to be not fully understood,” said Fujimoto, the lawyer.
Hundreds of individuals signed a petition requesting leniency for Yamagami, and others have sent care packages to his relatives and the reformatory where he’s being housed.
© 2026 The Canadian Press