Deluded Shinzo Abe assassin Tetsuya Yamagami on revenge mission

The unemployed former forklift driver who assassinated Shinzo Abe said he held a ‘grudge’ against the former Japanese prime minister over his mother’s bankruptcy by a religious group.

Tetsuya Yamagami in Nara City, Japan, on Sunday. Picture: AFP

The unemployed former forklift driver who assassinated Shinzo Abe said he held a “grudge” against the former Japanese prime minister over his mother’s bankruptcy by a religious group.

Tetsuya Yamagami told police his mother had become bankrupt after donating to an unnamed religious organisation he believed was associated with Japan’s ­longest-serving prime minister.

“My family joined that religion and our life became harder after [she] donated money to the organisation,” he told police, according to The Asahi Shimbun.

“I had wanted to target the top official of the organisation, but it was difficult. So I took aim at Abe since I believed that he was tied (to the organisation).

“I wanted to kill him.”

Yamagami, 41, was sent to prosecutors on Sunday on suspicion of murder. He immediately confessed to shooting Mr Abe after he was arrested on Friday.

Colleagues at the factory in Kyoto where he previously worked as a forklift operator described the former member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force as a loner.

“He always ate alone in his car at lunchtime while everyone else went to the cafeteria. I wondered if he wasn’t good at building ­relationships with others,” a former colleague told The Yomiuri Shimbun.

“[He] didn’t say much and had a slightly gloomy sense to him,” another colleague told Kyodo News. They said he stopped attending work in April this year and resigned in May.

Thousands of people queued at the weekend – many in the rain, even more in tears – to lay tributes of flowers, sake and other offerings at the site in Nara where the most dominant figure in contemporary Japanese politics was killed on Friday.

police display one of several improvised firearms uncovered at Tetsuya Yamagami’s studio apartment in Nara. Picture: Twitter

Mr Abe’s body was returned to Tokyo in a hearse on Saturday.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited his predecessor’s wife, Akie, to offer condolences ahead of Sunday’s upper house election.

Japanese voters cast their ballots just two days after the ­campaign-trail assassination of the 67-year-old former prime minister, the most devastating act of political violence in the country since World War II.

The election is expected to see Mr Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party increase its majority.

Mr Kishida said he would not allow the shock killing to halt the democratic process.

Security was increased at campaign events around the country, one of the safest in the world, ahead of Sunday’s poll.

A vigil for Mr Abe has been scheduled for Monday night, followed by a private funeral service on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is travelling to Tokyo to pay respects to the staunch US ally.

At the time of the attack, Yama­gami was living alone in a studio apartment in Nara, about 3km from where he shot Mr Abe with a homemade gun.

Police confiscated several similar homemade weapons during a search of his apartment, as well as explosives, pipes and a computer.

A candlelight vigil to pay tribute to Shinzo Abe in Ahmedabad, India, over the weekend. Picture: AFP

Officers also seized notebooks from his family home in Nara.

Nara’s prefectural police chief said it was “undeniable” there were flaws in the security arrangements for Friday’s campaign rally.

“I deeply feel the weight of responsibility,” Tomoaki Onizuka, 50, said at a news conference.

He said his staff had learned of Mr Abe’s campaign visit only the day before the rally, and he had personally approved the security arrangement just hours before the assassination.

“This is the most remorse and heartbreaking grief I’ve felt in my 27-year career,” he said.

Residents who lived near Yama­gami’s Nara apartment told local media he was a quiet neighbour.

However, some said they had started to hear metallic sounds coming from his apartment a few weeks ago.

Yamagami had served in the Maritime Self-Defence Force from 2003 to 2005. There, he learned the skills to assemble and disassemble a firearm and shoot one, local media reported.

He had followed Mr Abe to previous campaign speeches. On Thursday night, he was in Okayama – more than 200km from Nara – where Mr Abe was campaigning, according to Kyodo News.

Yamagami’s family home is in Nara City, where he previously lived with his mother, older brother, and younger sister. His father reportedly has died.

Japanese police have not named the religious organisation that obsessed Yamagami. Former Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe called for officials to publicly state the name of the group, as speculation grew on Japanese social media. Some fringe political groups in Japan had pushed conspiracy ­theories about the former prime minister’s support of foreign-backed religious groups, which they said had led to a “silent invasion of the country”.