Shinzo Abe: Former Japanese PM’s Assassination Suspect Has Been Charged With Murder

According to a court, Japanese prosecutors have officially accused the suspect in the death of former prime minister Shinzo Abe of murder and ordered him to stand trial.

Tetsuya Yamagami was detained right away after he is accused of shooting Mr. Abe outside a railway station in Nara, western Japan, in July as the former prime minister was giving a campaign address.

He subsequently underwent a roughly six-month-long mental evaluation, which according to the prosecution demonstrated his readiness for trial.

According to the Nara District Court, Yamagami was also accused of breaking weapons control legislation.

According to police, Yamagami claimed that he assassinated Mr. Abe, one of Japan’s most prominent and polarizing politicians, because of Mr. Abe’s alleged affiliations with a religious movement he detested.

Yamagami said in his declarations and in posts on social media that were attributed to him that he harbored resentment because his mother had given the Unification Church enormous sums of money, ruining his family’s finances and ruining his life.

Masaaki Furukawa, one of his attorneys, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Yamagami will be held accountable for the grave repercussions of his alleged conduct and that his defense team will work to have the sentence reduced. Although experts claim the death penalty is often meted out for many murders and Yamagami may receive life in prison if found guilty, Japanese law permits the death sentence for murder.

His trial has not yet been scheduled; however, it is anticipated that it will include a panel of civil jurors in addition to the regular bench judges, as is the standard in murder cases and other serious criminal prosecutions in Japan.

It would be months before his trial started because of how complicated the case was, according to Furukawa.

Police are thinking of adding more accusations, such as making weapons, breaking the ban on explosives, and causing property damage to buildings.

Some Japanese people have expressed sympathy with Yamagami, particularly for those who similarly suffered as the offspring of Unification Church adherents in South Korea.

A petition with thousands of supporters has been started, while others have donated care packages to Yamagami’s family or the jail.

As a result of the investigation into the case, it has come to light that the church and Mr. Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party have had cozy ties for many years, ever since the church was helped established in Japan in the 1960s by Mr. Abe’s grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, due to their shared support for conservative and anti-communist causes.

Fumio Kishida, the current prime minister, has lost support for how he handled the church matter and for insisting on arranging a rare, contentious state funeral for Mr. Abe.