Kathmandu – The man responsible for the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe using a homemade firearm has been sentenced to life imprisonment. According to Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, this verdict concludes the legal proceedings of a murder case that deeply shocked the nation.
Tetsuya Yamagami shot Abe in broad daylight in 2022 while the former leader was delivering a campaign speech on a street in the western city of Nara. Although Abe had stepped down from the premiership in 2020 due to health reasons, he remained politically active and wielded significant influence as Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister.
Yamagami, now 45, was arrested at the scene and indicted the following year on charges of murder and weapons violations. The shooting stunned Japan, a country known for having some of the world’s strictest gun laws and lowest rates of firearm-related crime.
Prime Minister Abe, whose leadership is viewed as a definitive period of political stability for Japan, served in office from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. During his two terms, he fundamentally shifted Japan’s security posture, challenging its status as a purely pacifist nation and passing landmark security legislation in 2015 that expanded the military’s capacity to support the United States. He was also a prominent figure on the global stage, strengthening ties with Washington, seeking to improve relations with Beijing, and uniting Pacific allies to counter regional expansion.
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