Man who assassinated former Japanese prime minister gets life in prison

A Japanese court has sentenced a man who admitted assassinating former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe to life imprisonment.

The case has revealed decades of close ties between Japan’s governing party and a controversial South Korean church.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, earlier pleaded guilty to killing Mr Abe in July 2022 during his election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

Mr Abe, one of Japan’s most influential politicians, was serving as a regular politician after leaving the prime minister’s job when he was killed in 2022 while campaigning in Nara.

It shocked a nation with strict gun control.

Yamagami pleaded guilty to murder in the trial that started in October. The Nara District Court announced on Wednesday that it had issued a guilty verdict and sentenced Yamagami to life in prison, as prosecutors requested.

Yamagami said he killed Mr Abe after seeing a video message the former leader sent to a group affiliated with the Unification Church.

He added that his goal was to hurt the church, which he hated, and expose its ties with Mr Abe, investigators have said.

Prosecutors demanded life imprisonment for Yamagami, while his lawyers sought a sentence of no more than 20 years, citing his troubles as the child of a church adherent.

Japanese law authorises the death penalty in murder cases, but prosecutors do not usually request it unless at least two people are killed.

The revelation of close ties between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the church caused the party to pull back from the church.

It also prompted investigations 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 against the move, pending a decision.

The killing also led the National Police Agency to increase police protection of dignitaries.

Mr 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 as the politician raises his fist. He collapses holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood.

Officials say Mr Abe died almost instantly.

Yamagami was captured on the spot. He said he initially planned to kill the leader of the Unification Church, but switched targets to Mr Abe because of the difficulty of getting close to the leader.

He told the court last year that he chose Mr Abe as a figure who exemplified the connection between Japanese politics and the church, according to NHK.

Yamagami, apologised to Mr 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’s case also brought attention to the children of Unification Church adherents in Japan, and influenced a law meant to restrict malicious donation solicitations by religious and other groups.

Thousands of people signed a petition requesting leniency for Yamagami, and others have sent care packages to his relatives and the detention centre where he is being housed.