Tokyo CNN —
Japanese prosecutors said on Friday they had charged a man suspected of murdering former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a fatal shooting last year.
Nara prosecutors said in a statement they have indicted Tetsuya Yamagami on murder and firearms charges after Abe was shot dead on July 8 while delivering a campaign speech on a city street.
The Nara District Court confirmed to CNN that it had received the charges.
Yamagami has been undergoing a psychiatric evaluation since his arrest last year in Nara to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial, public broadcaster NHK reported. His prison term assessment expired on Tuesday, NHK added.
Yamagami was arrested at the scene and admitted to shooting Abe, according to Nara Nishi police.
Doctors said the bullet that killed the former prime minister was “deep enough to reach his heart” and he died of excessive bleeding.
Abe, 67, a former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, served from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020 before resigning due to ill health.
His assassination in broad daylight shocked the world and sent shockwaves through Japan. World leaders offered their condolences as thousands of mourners gathered on the streets of Tokyo to pay tribute. A lavish and controversial state funeral was held for Abe in September.
NHK reported at the time that the suspect had targeted the former prime minister because he believed Abe’s grandfather – another former leader of the country – had supported the expansion of a religious group he held grudges against.
CNN was unable to independently confirm which group Yamagami was referring to, but Japanese Prime Minister Kishida referenced Abe’s ties to the Unification Church during a parliamentary session last September, saying there were “limits to understanding” the former’s ties Prime Minister to her group after his death.
In October, Kishida ordered an investigation into the church amid a growing scandal linking his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the controversial religious group, which had seen several ministers resign.
The church, originally known as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, was founded in South Korea in 1954. It had a global reach in the 1980s and is still widespread in parts of Asia today.