Prosecutors Requested Life in Prison to Shooter of Abe

Public prosecutors requested life in prison to the defendant, Tetsuya Yamagami, who was charged with shooting former prime minister Shinzo Abe to death, at the trial in Nara District Court on December 18th. Concerning significance of eliminating politically important figure, there have been arguments for possibility of a death penalty, the prosecutors dropped that choice. Yamagami said nothing about request of the penalty. 

Yamagami shot Abe to kill in an election campaign speech in Nara on July 8th, 2022. In the former trials, Yamagami explained that he decided to kill Abe after he realized that Abe had a close relationship with former Unification Church. Yamagami said that he had a strong sentiment against that religious organization, to which his mother donated a large amount of money to the extent his family had been collapsed.

 

In the fifteenth trial, which became the last one before the court would make a judgement on January 21st in 2026, the prosecutors explained the reason why they requested life in prison to Yamagami. They realized that the shooting in a cloud was extremely dangerous with possibility of damaging innocent audience of Abe’s speech. They also considered Yamagami’s deliberation of shooting Abe and great impact on society.

 

Furthermore, the prosecutors found irrationality of shooting Abe, even how Yamagami embraced a strong vengeance against the Unification Church, on which Yamagami told that he thought killing Abe might notify the society of malicious activities of the religious organization. “It cannot absolutely be tolerated in a country ruled by law to resort to a violence for changing society,” said the prosecutors, arguing that life in prison was a minimum request.

 

The lawyers for defendant stressed tragic situation of the Yamagamis, connecting it with motivation of killing Abe. Yamagami was so disappointed when he acknowledged Abe’s support for the Unification Church that he felt he was lucky enough to find a schedule of Abe’s speech in his hometown. The lawyers demanded penalty of twenty years in prison or shorter, considering Yamagami’s capability to reset his life.

 

There is an argument that a death penalty was needed to deter the same kind of violence in the future. However, sentencing a death penalty requires deliberation on past examples, as far as it would take life of a human. A death penalty has been imposed highly malicious crime such as murder with demand of ransom or for redemption of insurance. They also thought that they could not expect to seek intention of political terrorism or challenging democracy.

 

After Abe was killed, there might have some change in power balance in politics. The lawmakers of former Abe faction in the Liberal Democratic Party lost their political momentum in the slush fund scandal revealed in 2023. However, no one can anticipate that those lawmakers were not damaged by the scandal, if Abe had been alive. Politics without Abe is ongoing with leadership of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi who identifies herself as a successor of Abe’s politics.

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