After the murder, it has emerged that 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, who was arrested at the crime scene with a weapon in hand, harbored great resentment against the neo-religious so-called Moon movement or Moon sect (formally the Church of the Unity or the Family Federation for world peace and unity). He had also got the impression that Shinzo Abe had sympathies for the movement.
Shortly before the assassination, Yamagami sent a letter to an unnamed man described as a prominent critic of the Moon movement, reports the Japanese news agency Kyodo.
In the letter, the 41-year-old wrote that he felt a bitterness towards Abe, which he described as “one of the most influential of the Unity Church’s sympathizers in the real world”. However, he added that Abe was not his main “enemy”.
According to Japanese information, the killer has told in interrogation that his original plan was to kill the South Korean Hak Ja Han Moon, widow of the Free Church movement’s founder Sun Myung Moon. Covid restrictions must have put a stop to those plans.
Tetsuya Yamagami is also said to have complained that his mother had previously donated a large sum of money to the movement, which caused their family major problems.
On July 8, Shinzo Abe was shot dead in the middle of a campaign speech he gave in the city of Nara. He was for a long time one of the country’s most influential politicians.