Shinzo Abe (Photo: EPA)

The Nara District Court in western Japan has sentenced Tetsuya Yamagami to life in prison for the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022. This was reported by Kyodo and NHK.

Prosecutors demanded life imprisonment for the 45-year-old Yamagami, who confessed to killing Abe with a homemade weapon during his election speech in Nara. They called the act "an unprecedented crime in the country's postwar history."

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The defendant's lawyers insisted that the sentence should not exceed 20 years. They argued that the impetus for Abe's murder was Yamagami's "problematic" upbringing.

Yamagami, who pleaded guilty in October 2025, explained that he considered Abe to be the central link between the political world and the religious movement known as the Unification Church. His mother gave about 100 million yen ($633,000) to this organization. He says that her donations ruined their family.

Yamagami's mother, who testified in November, said that she "considered the donations more important than my children's education" and that she "thinks she is guilty."

As for the punishment, it divided public opinion in Japan. Some consider the man to be a murderer, while others sympathize with his "tragic childhood" and say he was a "victim of religious abuse."

There have been 15 court hearings in the case, the last one in December 2025.

REFERENCE
"The Unification Church is a religious organization officially registered as the Federation of Families for World Peace and Unification. It has been known for its large-scale wedding ceremonies since the 1950s. It was at the center of a political scandal in Japan. It turned out that members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had maintained close ties with the organization for years, and some high-ranking officials used its resources during the elections. Although the country's leadership initiated the severance of any relations with the organization, the LDP's reputation suffered serious damage. This led to a drop in the party's ratings and a loss of influence in parliament.