Tetsuya Yamagami, an unemployed 41-year-old, was identified by police as the suspect who approached Abe and opened fire during a campaign speech on Friday. Yamagami believed Abe had promoted a religious group to which his mother made a “huge donation,” Kyodo news agency reported, citing investigative sources. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Yamagami told police that his mother went bankrupt from the donation, the Yomiuri newspaper and other media reported. Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japanese branch of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, told reporters in Tokyo that Yamagami’s mother was a member of the church. Tanaka declined to comment on her donations, citing the ongoing police investigation. Neither Abe nor the man arrested for shooting him were members of the church, Tanaka said. Nor was Abe an adviser to the church, Tanaka said, adding that he would cooperate with police in the investigation if asked. Reuters was unable to contact Yamagami’s mother and could not determine whether he belonged to other religious organizations. The Unification Church was founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah and staunch anti-communist. She has gained worldwide media attention for her mass weddings where she marries thousands of couples at a time. The church’s affiliates include daily newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Moon ran a business empire and founded the conservative Washington Times newspaper. Abe, who was known for his conservative views, appeared at an event organized by a church-affiliated organization last September and delivered a speech praising the affiliate’s work for peace on the Korean peninsula, according to the church’s website . Critics have said for years that the church is a cult and dispute what they say are murky finances. The church rejects such views and says it is a legitimate religious movement. Police confirmed the suspect said he had a grudge against a specific organization, but did not name it. Tetsuya Yamagami, a suspect in the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is escorted by a police officer as he is led to prosecutors, at the Nara-nishi police station in Nara, western Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo on July 10, 2022 .Mandatory credit Kyodo via REUTERS
QUITE LIFE
Reuters visited Yamagami’s mother’s home in Nara on Monday. The white house is tucked away at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in an affluent neighborhood, a stop on the train from where Abe was shot. He didn’t seem to be at home. Two police officers sat outside in an unmarked car. A next-door neighbor, a woman who gave only her surname Ishii, said she did not know the family and had only ever greeted the mother. “I don’t see her around much, I say hi, but that’s about it,” he said, adding that the mother seemed to live a quiet life. Another neighbor, an 87-year-old woman who gave only her surname Tanida, said the mother had lived alone for a long time. Yamagami’s mother first joined the church around 1998, but stopped attending between 2009 and 2017, Tanaka said. About two to three years ago he reestablished contact with church members and for the past six months or so has been attending church events about once a month, he said. Tanaka said the church only learned of the mother’s financial difficulties after talking to those close to her. He said he did not know what caused these difficulties. Nara police said Monday that they found apparent bullet holes in a church-run facility and that the suspect told them he had fired a practice shot at the facility the day before he shot Abe. Two people who lived near the group’s largest church in Nara prefecture, which is also the closest to Yamagami’s home, told Reuters it had been quiet since Saturday. Weekends are normally busy with members attending services, they said. They hadn’t heard any loud bangs, they said.
ABE’S GRANDFATHER
Tanaka said Abe sent messages at events organized by church affiliates and expressed his support for the global peace movement. Moon, who spoke fluent Japanese, launched an anti-communist political campaign in Japan in the late 1960s and built relationships with Japanese politicians, according to church reports. Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s maternal grandfather and a former prime minister, was honorary executive chairman at a group banquet organized by Moon, the International Federation for Victory over Communism said on its website. Moon died in 2012. The church has about 600,000 members in Japan, out of 10 million worldwide, a church spokesman said. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo, Ju-min Park in Seoul and Tim Kelly in Nara. Additional reporting by Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo and Satoshi Sugiyama in Nara. Editing by David Dolan and Kenneth Maxwell Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
