{"id":427190,"date":"2026-01-21T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427190\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:57:08","slug":"man-who-assassinated-shinzo-abe-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-in-japanese-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427190\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who assassinated Shinzo Abe sentenced to life in prison in Japanese court"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gunman who assassinated former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has been sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, fatally shot Mr Abe in July 2022 with a homemade gun while the political leader was delivering a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.<\/p>\n

Yamagami pleaded guilty to murder, and prosecutors had sought a life sentence.<\/p>\n

Although Mr Abe was no longer serving as Japan’s prime minister at the time of his killing, the assassination stunned the nation.<\/p>\n

Yamagami previously said he targeted the country’s longest-serving premier over ties to a group formerly known as the Unification Church, which he blamed for ruining his family by taking excessive donations from his mother.<\/p>\n

How it unfolded<\/p>\n

Tetsuya Yamagami pleaded guilty <\/a>to fatally shooting Mr Abe as the prime minister stood surrounded by security, media and supporters outside the Yamato-Saidaiji train station in Nara in 2022.<\/p>\n

Yamagami used a homemade gun \u2014 made of pipes, wood and duct tape \u2014 to shoot Mr Abe several times.<\/p>\n

His legal team had called for a more lenient sentence, arguing a prison term of “no more than 20 years” was suitable.<\/p>\n

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The 45-year-old has said he shot Mr Abe because he believed he and other Japanese officials had ties to the controversial Unification Church.<\/p>\n

Yamagami’s mother had become a devoted member of the church and made extensive donations to it, which he said had left their family bankrupt.<\/p>\n

In court, Yamagami said he thought Mr Abe was the “centre of the Unification Church’s political involvement” in Japan.<\/p>\n

“I thought that striking back at the Unification Church and dealing it a blow was the purpose of my life,” he said.‘Moonies’ church faces dissolution<\/a><\/p>\n

The Unification Church has had close ties to world politics for decades, but a court ruling in Japan could be the end of the organisation.<\/p>\n

The killing of Mr Abe and Yamagami’s allegations led to high-profile investigations into the Unification Church.<\/p>\n

The group, which started in South Korea, became known for its mass weddings, and Mr Abe had spoken previously at events related to it.<\/p>\n

In early 2025, a Tokyo court ordered the church to disband \u2014 accusing it of manipulating followers into making large donations.<\/p>\n

During Yamagami’s trial, prosecutors called for a life sentence and labelled the killing “an unprecedented crime in our country’s postwar history”.<\/p>\n

They argued Yamagami’s “tragic” upbringing did not mean he did not know right from wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gunman who assassinated former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has been sentenced to life in prison. Tetsuya…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,17772,224188,41,39,42,40,224187],"class_list":{"0":"post-427190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-shinzo-abe","11":"tag-tetsuya-yamagami","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-unification-church"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}