Overview
- Sentencing is scheduled Wednesday at the Nara District Court, more than three years after Abe was shot during a campaign speech.
- Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, admitted killing Abe with a homemade gun and testified he targeted him over perceived ties to the Unification Church.
- Prosecutors labeled the attack an unprecedented postwar crime and asked for life imprisonment, while the defense argued for a term of 20 years or less.
- Analysis of posts on X found calls for harsh punishment outnumbered sympathetic comments, underscoring broad condemnation of political violence.
- The killing accelerated scrutiny of the Unification Church and LDP links, prompting a 2022 law curbing manipulative fundraising and a Tokyo court order to dissolve the group and strip its tax benefits.