A Japanese court sentenced a man who admitted assassinating former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to life imprisonment, according to NHK public television.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, earlier pleaded guilty to killing Abe in July 2022 during his election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.
The Nara District Court confirmed the verdict and sentenced Yamagami to life in prison, as prosecutors requested.
Yamagami said he killed Abe after seeing a video message the former leader sent to a group affiliated with the Unification Church. He added that his goal was to hurt the church, which he hated, and expose its ties with Abe.
The revelation of close ties between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the church caused the party to pull back from the church. It also prompted investigations that ended with the church's Japanese branch being stripped of its tax-exempt religious status and ordered dissolved.
The killing has also led to officials working to increase police protection of dignitaries.
Abe was shot on July 8, 2022, while giving a speech outside a train station in Nara. In footage captured by television cameras, two gunshots ring out as the politician raises his fist. He collapses holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood. Officials say Abe died almost instantly.
Yamagami was captured on the spot. He said he initially planned to kill the leader of the Unification Church, but switched targets to Abe because of the difficulty of getting close to the leader.
Yamagami’s case has also brought attention to the children of Unification Church adherents in Japan, and influenced a law meant to restrict malicious donation solicitations by religious and other groups.
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