On 8 July 2022, Tetsuya Yamagami appeared at the northern exit of Yamato-Saidaiji Station, Nara at 11:30 am, where Shinzo Abe was delivering a campaign speech for a Liberal Democratic Party candidate in the upcoming Upper House election. Abe was positioned inside a traffic island of the crossroad, facing away from the train station. Yamagami was situated behind Abe, with a street separating them. Subsequently, Yamagami began to slowly approach Abe, going unnoticed by Abe’s bodyguards. Yamagami then discharged a homemade shotgun, seemingly not hitting anyone in the vicinity. Upon hearing the noise, Abe turned his head to look behind him. Yamagami took a few steps forward and fired a second round. Abe immediately displayed signs of severe pain and collapsed to the ground. Abe’s bodyguards rushed towards Yamagami and restrained him on the ground.
Yamagami told investigators that his motive had been personal rather than political.[55][56][57][58] After his mother joined the Unification Church around 1991 to 1998,[a][26] she had given the church about 100 million yen (US$720,000), a parcel of land she had inherited from her father, and the house where she lived with her three children; she subsequently declared bankruptcy in 2002. She had continued donating to the church following the bankruptcy. Yamagami’s uncle recalled being contacted by Yamagami and his siblings to complain that they had no food at home, electric bills and house rent were often overdue, prompting the uncle to deliver meals and money for living expenses.
Yamagami blamed the Unification Church for his family’s financial problems and held a grudge against the group. Researching the church’s connections to Abe in the months before the attack, he believed the former prime minister and his maternal grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, spread the church’s influence in Japan.
Yamagami is described by some commentators who wrote for The Economist and The Atlantic as one of the most effective political assassins in recent history. The assassination brought the many social issues with the Unification Church under the spotlight again, as well as tumbled the approval of the ruling party. Under the public pressure, the responsible ministry decided to file a dissolution order against the UC with the Tokyo District Court on 13 October 2023, after nearly a year of investigation of wrongdoings.
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