Murder charge to be filed against the killer of Shinzo Abe: The Moonies
Noriko Watanabe and Kanako Mita
Modern Tokyo Times
Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan, was assassinated in Nara last year by Tetsuya Yamagami. His killer was a former member of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.
He had left many years earlier and blamed the Abe family for allowing the Moonies (Unification Church) to abuse ordinary Japanese nationals. His mother gave vast sums to the Moonies before putting the family under severe financial difficulties.
Yamagami is seen openly on camera killing Abe while the former leader of Japan was canvassing the electorate outside in Nara. However, Yamagami was taken to a special place for psychiatric evaluation.
After being evaluated for over 5 months, the Nara District Public Prosecutors Office concludes that Yamagami is mentally competent. Hence, he can be held accountable concerning criminal liability – if found guilty.
The Guardian reports, “Yamagami had targeted Abe, he told police, because he believed the politician was a supporter of the church, which he blamed for destroying his family after his mother, a follower, donated more than 100m yen (£627,000) to the group two decades earlier.”
Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi and his father Shintaro were known to have ties with the Unification Church. For Kishi, this relates to his anti-Communist mindset.
Yamagami said, Kishi “Invited the church (to Japan from South Korea). So I killed (his grandson) Abe.”
Lee Jay Walker says, “The known killer of Abe is agreed upon throughout wider society in Japan. However, why the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and other political parties in Japan had ties with the Moonies is a different issue – and it is the one question that generates great anger against the political elites.”
Astonishingly, despite the brutal assassination of Abe, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promoted Cabinet members, parliamentary vice ministers, and vice ministers despite knowing they were connected to the Moonies. Therefore, with politicians knowing that vast numbers of people had been abused by the Moonies for decades – similar to his mother – the case of Yamagami is extremely complex.
After all, it overlaps with public anger towards the elected elites who negated their responsibilities to protect people from economic religious cults.
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