Japan court to rule in trial of man charged with killing ex-PM Abe

TOKYO, Jan 21 (Reuters) – A Japanese court will announce its verdict on Wednesday for a man accused of fatally shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, three and a half years after the assassination of the country’s longest-serving prime minister stunned the country.

Tetsuya Yamagami, now 45, was arrested at the scene in July 2022 after fatally shooting Abe with a homemade gun as the former prime minister was giving a campaign speech in the western city of Nara. Abe was 67 years old.

Although he was no longer Japan’s leader at the time, Abe remained a strong and binding force within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. His absence has created a void within the party, which has since seen two leadership contests and an associated revolving door of prime ministers.

Abe served as prime minister for a total of 3,188⁠ days across two separate terms and resigned in September 2020, citing health reasons.

His protégé, Sanae Takaichi, currently heads Japan and the LDP, but the party’s grip on power has diminished significantly.

Abe’s killing also brought to light the deep ties between his party and the Unification Church, which many consider a sect. An internal party investigation revealed that more than a hundred MPs were associated with the group; This led many voters to stay away from the LDP, which ruled Japan for much of the postwar period.

Media quoted Yamagami as telling the court that he held a grudge against the Unification Church because his mother’s large donation caused financial hardship for their family, and that he took out his anger on Abe because the former prime minister once sent a video message to an event organized by a group affiliated with the church.

The Unification Church, founded in South Korea in 1954, is famous for its mass weddings and counts its Japanese followers as a major source of income.

After Yamagami confessed to killing Abe at the first hearing at the Nara District Court in October, the guilty verdict was almost final and attention turned to the severity of the sentence.

Prosecutors last month sought a life sentence, calling the act “an extremely grave event unprecedented in post-war history.”

Yamagami’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued that the donation to the Unification Church should take into account the family’s misfortune and that the prison sentence should be limited to a maximum of 20 years.

While Abe was a divisive figure at home, he was one of the few global leaders to forge a strong relationship with US President Donald Trump.

Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his election victory in 2016, and the two continued to bond closely over golf tours in the United States and Japan. In his dealings with Trump, Prime Minister Takaichi has repeatedly referred to their friendship.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Michael Perry)