Oct. 28 (UPI) — The man accused of killing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022 pleaded guilty to the assassination on Tuesday.
Tetsuo Yamagami, 45, told Judge Shinichi Tanaka, in his first public appearance since the killing, that he murdered Abe because he blamed him for religious abuse he suffered in his youth.
“Everything is true,” Yamagami told the court in his first hearing for the crime, adding that “there is no mistake that I did it.”
Yamagami’s attorneys requested leniency from the court because their client had been victimized during his upbringing, because his mother, who is set to be a witness in the trial, was a follower of the Unification Church.
Abe, who had been Japan’s longest serving prime minister since World War II, was targeted based perceived links to the church, formally referred to as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which was partially introduced to Japan by his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuki Kishi, in 1954.
People offer flowers and pray on July 8, 2024, the 2nd anniversary of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination, at the site where he was shot near Yamato-Saidaiji station in Nara-Prefecture, Japan. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI
Yamagami allegedly used a homemade gun to kill Abe on July 8, 2022 while he was giving a campaign speech for a colleague in Japan’s Upper House election.
It was one of six he had made in his home in late 2020 and in the two years after produced two kilograms of black powder and tested fired the guns at several different locations, prosecutors said.
Although defense lawyers have argued that Yamagami’s childhood should lead to a reduced sentence, prosecutors have said the shooting is an “unprecedented” crime in post-war Japan and that he does not deserve leniency.
