Man who killed Japan’s ex-PM Shinzo Abe gets life in prison

The man who killed Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has been sentenced to life in prison, three and a half years after he fatally shot the former leader during a rally in the city of Nara in 2022.

Tetsuya Yamagami himself admitted his guilt at the opening of the trial last year. However, the punishment he deserved divided public opinion in Japan. While many view the 45-year-old as a cold-blooded killer, some sympathize with his troubled upbringing.

Prosecutors said Yamagami deserved a life sentence for his “serious act.” Abe’s assassination stunned the country, which has almost no gun crime.

Asking for leniency, Yamagami’s defense team said he was the victim of “religious abuse”.

His mother’s devotion to the Unification Church bankrupted the family, and Yamagami held a grudge against Abe after realizing the former leader’s ties to the controversial church.

About 700 people lined up outside the Nara district court on Wednesday to attend the sentencing hearing.

Abe’s shocking death while giving a speech in broad daylight sparked investigations into the Unification Church and its questionable practices, including soliciting financially ruinous donations from its followers.

The case also exposed links to politicians from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and resulted in the resignation of several cabinet ministers.

Journalist Eito Suzuki, who covered all but one of Yamagami’s trials, said Yamagami and his family appeared “despondent” throughout the hearing.

Suzuki, who began studying the Unification Church long before Abe’s shocking murder, describes Yamagami “exuding a sense of world-weariness and resignation.”

“Everything is true. There is no doubt that I did this,” Yamagami said solemnly on the first day of his trial in October 2025.

The murder of Japan’s best-known public figure at the time (Abe remains the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history) sent shockwaves around the world.

Yamagami’s lawyers, who requested a prison sentence of no more than 20 years, argued that he was the victim of “religious abuse”. The court heard that his mother was angry at the church for donating her late father’s life insurance and other assets amounting to 100 million yen (S$828,750).

Yamagami expressed his grievance against Abe after seeing his video message at a church-related event in 2021, but said he initially planned to attack church administrators, not Abe.

Suzuki remembers Abe’s widow Akie’s surprised look when she told him that Yamagami’s real target was not the former leader. Her statement “is vividly etched in my mind,” Suzuki says.

“It felt like a shock, like she was asking: Was my husband just a tool to satisfy my grudge against the religious organization? Is that all?”

In an emotional statement read to the court, Akie Abe said the grief of losing her husband “will never ease”.

“I just wanted him to survive,” he said.

The Unification Church, founded in South Korea, entered Japan in the 1960s and established ties with politicians to increase its following, researchers say.

Although not a member, Abe, like many other Japanese politicians, occasionally attended church-related events. His grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, also a former Prime Minister, is said to be close to the group due to his anti-communist stance.

In March last year, a court in Tokyo revoked the church’s status as a religious organization, ruling that the church had forced its followers to buy expensive items by exploiting fears for their spiritual well-being.

The church’s organization of mass wedding ceremonies attended by thousands of couples also caused controversy.

Suzuki recalls that Yamagami’s sister, who appeared as a defense witness during his trial, gave a tearful testimony about the “terrible conditions she and her siblings endured” because of their mother’s deep devotion to the church.

“It was an intensely emotional moment. Almost everyone in the public gallery appeared to be crying,” he says.

But prosecutors argue there is a “leap in logic” as to why Yamagami directed his anger at the church at Abe. During the hearing, the judges also asked questions indicating that they had difficulty understanding this aspect of his defense.

Observers are also divided on whether Yamagami’s personal tragedies justify a reduced sentence for his actions.

“It is difficult to refute the claim that Abe did not directly harm Yamagami or his family,” Suzuki says.

But he believes Yamagami’s case shows “how victims of social problems are driven to commit serious crimes.”

“This chain needs to be broken, we need to properly examine why he committed the crime,” says Suzuki.

Rin Ushiyama, a sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast, says sympathy for Yamagami stems largely from “widespread distrust and antipathy towards controversial religions such as the Unification Church in Japan.”

“Yamagami was definitely a ‘victim’ of parental neglect and financial hardship [Unification Church]But this does not explain, let alone justify. [actions]” says Ushiyama.