US EditionMan who assassinated former Japan leader Abe with homemade gun sentenced to life in prison
Tetsuya Yamagami was sentenced to life imprisonment for assassinating Abe to expose the Unification Church's ties with Japan's ruling party, prosecutors said the crime was unprecedented.
- From 1:30 p.m., the Nara District Court will sentence Tetsuya Yamagami, who admitted fatally shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on Jan 21, 2026.
- His lawyers say the motive stems from his family being ruined by his mother's donations of around 100 million yen, and he targeted Abe after seeing a video message about the church's political ties.
- Using a handcrafted weapon, he assembled a homemade gun and fired two shots at Abe at a July 8, 2022 campaign event; Yamagami was arrested on the spot outside Yamato-Saidaiji train station, Nara.
- For the lay judges, the choice is between prosecutors seeking life imprisonment calling the killing `unprecedented in our post-war history` and defence counsel urging no more than 20 years citing `religious abuse`.
- The fallout has produced legal change, with Japanese courts and government probes enforcing the December 2022 law regulating manipulative fundraising and sanctioning the Unification Church.
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175 Articles
The deadly assassination of Japan's ex-premier Shinzō Abe in 2022 caused worldwide horror. Now the perpetrator was sentenced to life imprisonment. In court it was also about connections of a sect into politics.
Dnevni list Danas
vijesti.meThe killer of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was sentenced to life imprisonment today. Tetsua Yamagami admitted that he killed Abe in July 2022, and the assassination was carried out during the election campaign, when Abe was giving a speech in the city of Nara.
Tetsuya Yamagami, the murderer of the former Prime Minister of Japan, was sentenced to real perpetuity. The jury did not take into account the motivation of the act, namely a family ruined by the donations of the mother of the accused to the former Unification Church. Shinzo Abe maintained links with this religious movement better known as the Moon sect.
Japan's longest-serving prime minister was shot dead in 2022 during an election speech. The assassination sparked a discussion about the ties between politics and the Unification Church.
Tetsuya Yamagami fatally wounded Abe with a makeshift firearm while he was delivering an election speech in July 2022.
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