Life in Prison to Assassin of Abe

Nara District Court on January20th sentenced life in prison to the defendant, Tetsuya Yamagami, in the case of murdering former prime minister Shinzo Abe on July 8th, 2022. Recognizing a hard situation of the Yamagami’s family suffering from his mother’s fanatic devotion to Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), or former Unification Church, the court found the murder to be extremely wrong. Oddly enough, the court did not consider the relationship between Abe and FFWPU, which must have been the main reason why Yamagami targeted Abe. 

Yamagami shot Abe to death during Abe’s campaign rally in Nara city. The court found that the defendant had been indifferent to someone’s life and decided the assault with his own motivation, considering the environment of the crime that was surrounded by the audience. “In the process of decision for murder, it was not found that unhappiness of the defendant strongly affected,” said the court.

 

It was revealed in the trials that an elder brother of Yamagami killed himself in 2015, protesting his mother’s deep involvement in religious activities of Unification Church including 100 million yen of donation. Yamagami decided to damage the religious organization as a vengeance. Although Yamagami could not get a chance to assault the leaders of FFWPU, he found a schedule of Abe’s campaign rally in his home town.

 

Yamagami’s lawyers argued that the situation of his family was directly connected with his crime, requesting court’s consideration for penalty on him. While the public prosecutors had been demanding life in prison, the lawyers expected lighter penalty with limit of detention, approximately for 20 years. Understanding Yamagami’s anger against FFWPU, the court realized that Yamagami, at the age of 41 then, could conceive antisociality of taking life of others, adding that Abe had no fault.

 

The court completely separated the case from political significance. In the trials, Yamagami told that he had thought that Abe was at the center of community between politics and the religious organization. Yamagami expected that his assault would give FFWPU’s excessive activities a chance to be known. But the court concluded that there was a great logical leap between anger against the religious organization and killing Abe.

 

Yamagami was charged with violation of laws on controlling guns and swords, manufacturing weapons, regulation of gun powder and destruction of buildings. The court recognized all of those charges on Yamagami. However, it avoided to elaborate how the case of murdering an important political figure had impacted Japanese society. There still is a hesitance in Japan to call the case assassination.

 

Yamagami and his lawyers are supposed to appeal to the higher court. It is expected that the court will examine this murder case from the viewpoint of violation of freedom of political speech to protect politicians, especially the ones in minority groups, from violence.

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