Suspect in Japan’s Former PM Shinzo Abe’s Assassination Charged With Murder

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks to media after the summit between the United States and North Korea in Singapore, at Abe's official residence in Tokyo, Japan, on June 12, 2018. Issei Kato/Reuters

A Japanese man suspected of shooting Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022 was charged with murder and firearms law violations on Friday after undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 42, was charged with the murder of Abe, Japan’s longest-serving leader. Abe was shot and killed during a campaign speech in Japan’s western city of Nara on July 8, 2022. Police arrested Yamagami on the spot.

Yamagami, who allegedly shot Abe at close range using a homemade gun, was also charged with violating Japan’s gun control law.

The Nara District Public Prosecutors Office decided that Yamagami is fit to stand trial for the crime following mental evaluation tests he underwent since July 2022, Kyodo News reported. The date of the trial was not specified.

“We have to take it seriously that Mr. Abe was killed,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters on Friday, noting that Yamagami’s violent act during an election campaign threatened Japan’s “foundation of democracy.”

Tetsuya Yamagami, suspected of killing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is escorted by a police officer as he is taken to prosecutors, at Nara-nishi police station in Nara, Japan, on July 10, 2022. Kyodo via Reuters

Yamagami’s detention period for the psychiatric evaluation, which began in July 2022, ended on Tuesday.

Police also found explosives and cylindrical objects during searches at Yamagami’s apartment in Nara in the past year.

Yamagami told police that he intended to kill Abe because he believed the former prime minister was connected to a religious organization that had bankrupted his family. Japanese news outlets identified the religious organization in question as the South Korea-based Unification Church.

Some Japanese have expressed sympathy for Yamagami, especially those who also suffered as children of followers of the Unification Church, which is known for pressuring adherents into making big donations and is considered a cult in Japan.

A mourner offers flowers next to a picture of late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot while campaigning for a parliamentary election, on the day to mark a week after his assassination at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, on July 15, 2022. Issei Kato/Reuters

Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s popularity has plunged over his handling of the church controversy and for insisting on holding a controversial state funeral for Abe, whose death has drawn condolences from across political divides and from around the world.

Kishida shuffled his Cabinet in August last year to remove ministers with church ties, but the subsequent release of an investigation by the governing party in September showed nearly half of its 400 national lawmakers had church connections.

Kishida, who said he has no relations with the church, promised that party lawmakers will cut ties with the group, and his government has begun an investigation that could lead to a revocation of the church’s religious status.

Abe served as Japan’s prime minister and as the president of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020 before resigning in August 2020 due to health concerns.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.