Japan: The mother of Abe’s assassin is a member of the Unification Church

LAST UPDATE: 11.09

The mother of the assassin of former Japanese president Shinzo Abe was a member of the Unification Church, the head of that church in Japan said today.

Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old unemployed man, was identified by police as the man who killed Abe during his campaign speech in Nara on Friday.

Yamagami believed the former prime minister was promoting a religious group to which his mother had made a “huge donation,” the Kyodo news agency reported, citing investigators. The attacker himself told police that his mother went bankrupt because of the donation, the Yomiuri newspaper and other Japanese media reported.

Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japanese Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, told reporters in Tokyo today that Yamagami’s mother was indeed a member of the church.

Tanaka declined to comment on the woman’s donations, citing the ongoing police investigation.

Police have confirmed that Yamagami harbored hateful feelings against an organization, which authorities have not named.

Neither Abe nor his assassin belong to the church, Tanaka pointed out, stressing that the former Japanese prime minister had no role as an adviser to the church.

Abe had appeared at an event of an organization affiliated with the Unification Church last September, where he gave a speech praising the organization’s work toward achieving peace on the Korean peninsula, according to the church’s website.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Yamagami’s mother and could not confirm whether the woman belonged to another religious organization.

Yamagami’s mother joined the organization around 1998, but stopped going to its meetings from 2009 to 2017, Tanaka said.

Two to three years ago he restored communication with members of the organization and for the last six months he has been participating in its meetings about once a month, he added.

The Unification Church was founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah and staunch opponent of the Communists.

The organization received worldwide publicity due to the mass wedding ceremonies it performs, marrying thousands of couples simultaneously.

Moon, who spoke fluent Japanese, launched an anti-communist political campaign in Japan in the late 1960s and formed relationships with Japanese politicians, according to Church publications.

Moon died in 2012. The Unification Church has about 600,000 members in Japan out of 10 million worldwide, Tanaka concluded.

SOURCE: AMPE