The suspect in the assassination of the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he had misgivings against a religious sect which, he says, his victim supported.
Tetsuya Yamagami carried out his attack as revenge for the influential politician’s support for the so-called unification church and to which his mother donated money.
The aggressor, 41 years old and a former worker in the Japan Self-Defense Forces (Army), confessed that he decided to kill Abe after initially contemplating attacking a leader of the religious organization to which his mother belonged.
In a press conference on Monday, July 11, said organization confirmed that Yamagami’s mother attended the congregation monthly but declined to refer to the alleged donations that apparently caused financial problems for the family and would be among her motives for the attack- as they are under police investigation.
The religious group was founded in Korea in the middle of the last century by Sun Myung Moonwho passed away in 2012. At that time the sect claimed three million followers, who proclaimed him as the True Father.
For decades the sect was famous for organizing mass marriages, with thousands of couples uniting in gigantic sports stadiums.
a video message
Also known as the ‘Moon’ sectthe organization has links with conservative world leaders and Abe would have sent a video message of support to one of their meetings.
“Abe showed his support for our global peace movement. However, he never registered as a member of our church, nor as an advisor. We’re a bit taken aback because there’s a long way to go between holding a grudge against us and killing Mr. Abe. We cannot understand the motives of the suspect, so we will cooperate fully with the police to unravel him,” Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japanese branch of the Moon Church, told a news conference.
The head of the organization also said that the suspect “appeared to be confused” about Abe’s involvement in the church.
He also denied that Abe’s grandfather, Nobuo Kishi, who was imprisoned for three years as a war criminal after World War II and later exonerated and elected prime minister, had any “special relationship” with the Church of the Church’s expansion into Japan. Unification in the late 1950s.
Japanese authorities had announced shortly after Yamagami’s arrest that the suspect had misgivings about a religious group linked to Abe, but withheld the name apparently so as not to affect the weekend’s upper house elections.
Japan is a Buddhist, Shinto country, but it is home to thousands of sects and new religions that include imported creeds.
In that country, the organization has 284 parishes, according to its official website.