Japanese prosecutors on Friday charged the man suspected of murdering former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last July after the suspect was found fit to stand trial after a lengthy psychiatric evaluation.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 42, was arrested immediately after the incident in Nara, western Japan, where the former Japanese leader was speaking at an outdoor campaign rally when he was shot dead.
“He was charged today” with “murder and violating the law” on arms control, a spokesman for the Nara court told AFP, confirming information from Yomiuri daily and Kyodo agency.
Mr. Yamagami faces the death penalty if found guilty.
Earlier this week, Japanese television networks aired footage showing him being transferred to a Nara police station from a detention center in the nearby metropolis of Osaka, where he had been undergoing a psychiatric evaluation for the past five months.
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister in 2006-2007 and 2012-2020, was allegedly targeted by Mr Yamagami for his alleged links to the Moon sect, also known as the Unification Church.
The suspect resented this group, to which his mother would have made very large donations in the past and ruined her family.
According to local media, his psychiatric evaluation focused on his relationship with his mother and his family environment.
Big scandal in Japan
Shinzo Abe, whose controversial state funeral was held in Japan last September, was not a member of the Unification Church.
But in particular, in 2021 he had attended a symposium organized by a group belonging to this sect, like other political figures, including former American President Donald Trump.
This religious organization was founded by Sun Myung Moon in Korea in 1954 and developed strongly in the 1970s and 1980s, including in Japan.
What now calls itself the “Family Alliance for World Peace and Unification” has denied any wrongdoing and has pledged to prevent “excessive” donations from its members.
Abe’s murder has sparked a series of revelations about the religious group’s ties to many Japanese lawmakers, and helped lower the popularity ratings of the government of Liberal Democratic Party leader Fumio Kishida since last summer (PLD, conservative right), like Abe before him to break in.
Mr. Kishida ordered a government investigation that could lead to an order to disband the Moon sect under Japan’s Religious Organizations Law. This order would cause it to lose its tax exemptions, but without ceasing its activities.