A Japanese court yesterday sentenced a man who admitted to assassinating former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe to life imprisonment.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, earlier pleaded guilty to killing Abe in July 2022 during an election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.
Abe, one of Japan’s most influential politicians, was serving as a regular lawmaker after leaving the prime minister’s job when he was killed.
Photo: AFP
Yamagami pleaded guilty to murder in the trial that started in October last year.
The Nara District Court yesterday said that it had issued a guilty verdict and sentenced Yamagami to life in prison, as prosecutors requested.
Yamagami said he killed Abe after seeing a video message the former leader sent to a group affiliated with the Unification Church.
He said that his goal was to hurt the church, which he hated, and expose its ties with Abe, investigators 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 authorizes the death penalty in murder cases, but prosecutors do not usually request it unless at least two people are killed.
Abe was shot on July 8, 2022, 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 said that 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 Abe because of the difficulty of getting close to the leader.
He told the court last year that he chose Abe as a figure who exemplified the connection between Japanese politics and the church.
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