Abe Shooter Cites Despair, Crisis as Triggers for Attack

Nara, Nov. 25 (Jiji Press)--Tetsuya Yamagami, on trial for the 2022 murder of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said in court Tuesday that he felt despair and a sense of crisis over Abe’s video message in 2021 to a group affiliated with the Unification Church, against which he reportedly had a grudge.

During the 11th hearing of his lay-judge trial at Nara District Court, the 45-year-old said he believed the late prime minister had a long-standing relationship with the controversial religious group, ever since Abe, then the country’s chief cabinet secretary, sent a congratulatory telegram to the group in 2006.

Yamagami said he heard a Unification Church official say at the time that Abe was on the side of the group.

“I felt (the Unification Church) would be increasingly accepted by society because he (Abe) was a very long-serving prime minister,” the defendant said. “From the victim side’s perspective, it was very frustrating and unacceptable.”

Yamagami said he knew that many members of Abe’s second administration, launched in 2012, had participated in Unification Church-linked events. He said that it was “very bad” for lawmakers to take part in the group’s events.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]