Japan: Abe’s killer planned the attack for months

LAST UPDATE: 18:03

The man who assassinated Shinzo Abe believed the former Japanese prime minister was linked to a religious group, which he blames for his mother’s financial ruin, and had spent months planning the attack with an improvised weapon, police told local media today. .

Unemployed Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, was identified as the suspect in Abe’s assassination yesterday after video aired on Japanese television showing a man calmly walking up to the former prime minister and shooting him in the back.

Slim, bespectacled and with unruly hair, the suspect is seen walking down the street behind Abe, who was standing on a pedestal at an intersection, and shooting him twice with his 40cm gun, which was wrapped in black film. The police stopped him on the spot.

Yamagami was a loner who did not respond when spoken to, neighbors told Reuters. He believed Abe was promoting a religious organization that had bankrupted his mother from donations he had made to her, Kyodo news agency reported, citing investigating authorities.

“My mother was involved in a religious organization and I hated it,” the suspect told police, Kyodo and other Japanese media reported.

Police in Nara, the city where the murderous attack took place, declined to comment on details reported by Japanese media about Yamagami’s motive or preparations for the attack.

The media has not named the religious organization that allegedly drew his ire.

Yamagami assembled the weapon from parts he bought online and spent months planning the attack, even going to Abe’s campaign events, including one on the eve of the assassination, 200 kilometers away from Nara, media reported. .

He had planned a bomb attack before resorting to the gun attack, according to public broadcaster NHK.

The suspect told police he made weapons by wrapping metal pipes with tape, some with three, five or six pipes with parts he bought online, according to NHK.

Police found bullet holes in a sign affixed to an Abe campaign van near the site of the attack that they believe came from Yamagami, police said today.

Videos show Abe turning to the gunman’s side after the first shot before collapsing to the ground after the second.

His neighbors describe him as a closed and quiet person

Yamagami lived on the eighth floor of a small apartment building. The ground floor was full of bars where customers pay to drink and chat with the waitresses.

The elevator stops at the third floor–a money-saving design. Yamagami continued up the stairs to the eighth floor where his house is located.

A 69-year-old neighbor of his, who lives downstairs, had seen him three days before the murder.

“I greeted him but he ignored me. He was looking down at the ground and he wasn’t wearing a mask. He looked nervous,” the woman told Reuters, giving only her surname of Nakayama. “It was like I was invisible. It looked like something was bothering him,” she continues.

Nakayama pays rent of $260 a month and estimates that her neighbors pay the same amount.

A Vietnamese woman who lives in the apartment next door to Yamagami and said her name is Mai described him as a closed guy. “I saw him a couple of times. I greeted him in the elevator, but he didn’t say anything.”

The experience from the navy

A man named Tetsuya Yamagami served in Japan’s Naval Self-Defense Force from 2002 to 2005, a Japanese Navy spokesman said, declining to comment on whether the man is the suspect as reported by media.

“During their service, members of the Japan Naval Self-Defense Force train with live fire once a year. They also do weapon disassembly and maintenance,” a senior Navy officer told Reuters.

“But as they follow orders when they do, it is hard to believe that they acquire enough knowledge to be able to make weapons. Even long-serving soldiers do not know how to make weapons,” he said.

Shortly after leaving the Navy, Yamagami was hired by a human resources firm and in late 2020 began working at a factory in Kyoto as a forklift operator, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

He was not in trouble until mid-April when he was absent from work without leave and then told his supervisor he wanted to resign, the same publication said. He used his leave and left his job on May 15.

It’s easy to make a makeshift weapon like the one that killed Abe

A suspect in the homemade weapon assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could have built it within a day or two of procuring readily available materials such as wooden or metal pipes, analysts say.

The deadly attack on the former prime minister proved that gun violence cannot be completely eradicated even in a country where strict gun laws make it almost unheard of for citizens to buy and own guns.

There have been some cases in recent years where citizens have illegally made their own weapons in Japan. But even so, gun crime is very rare in this country: there were 10 shootings last year, six of which involved gangs, according to police figures. One person was killed and four were injured.

“Manufacturing weapons with a 3D printer and making bombs today can be done by reading the Internet from anywhere in the world,” says Mitsuru Fukuda, a professor at Nihon University who specializes in crisis management and terrorism.

“It can be done within two or three days after someone procures parts such as pipes,” notes Fukuda, who analyzed photos of the weapon used to assassinate Abe.

From visual material it appears that the person arrested for the murder was holding a device that had a pistol grip and what can be seen are two pipes covered with black insulating tape.

“Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how weapons work could build it with as little knowledge as possible,” explains weapons expert Tetsuya Tsuda, adding that it probably didn’t even take half a day to build the weapon used.

Japanese media reported today that the suspect told investigators that he had searched online for instructions on how to make weapons and had also ordered parts and gunpowder online.

The gunman’s weapon measured 40 by 20 centimeters and was made of materials such as metal and wood, police officials in Nara, the city where the attack took place, told reporters yesterday.

Police have not ruled out the possibility that even the bullets were homemade, but say they are still investigating.

Investigators seized five improvised weapons at the detainee’s home, the Mainichi newspaper reported today.

The man arrested for Abe’s murder told investigators he made weapons with three, five and six metal barrels in addition to the one he used in the attack, according to Japanese media.

The issue of illegal manufacture of improvised weapons is not limited to Japan. For example, officials in Spain in April 2021 found a replica automatic rifle and smaller weapons during a raid on an illegal factory that appeared to be making 3D-printed weapons.