Yamagami Yoko Tetsuya (September 10, 1980-) was a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force veteran who, on 8 July 2022, shot former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a stump speech in Nara.
Biography[]
Yamagami Yoko Tetsuya was born in Mie Prefecture, Japan on September 10, 1980 the second son of Nakauchi Tetsuya (1947-December 31, 1984) and Ako Yoko Tetsuya and he served in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in Kure from 2002 to 2005. After leaving the military, Yamagami worked as a forklit operator, only to become unemployed and hopeless about future career prospects. Yamagami became dissatisfied with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe because he believed that Abe was being influenced by the Unification Church, whose brainwashing had bankrupted his mother. Yamagami built his own shotgun and planned to assassinate Abe at a stump speech held in Nara on 8 July 2022, two days before the House of Councillors elections. He stood behind Abe, 10 feet away, before shooting Abe in the middle of his speech; Yamagami did not try to escape, and he was subsequently arrested and sent to the Nara West Police Station for questioning.
Personal life[]
Yamagami was born on 10 September 1980 in Mie Prefecture to affluent parents who ran a local construction business. Described as quiet and reserved in high school, he wrote in his graduation yearbook that he "didn't have a clue" what he wanted to do in the future. In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, a relative stated that Yamagami had been struggling since childhood with the Unification Church that his mother Ako had become a member of. After the death of his maternal grandfather, his mother inherited ownership of the family business. Yamagami graduated from Nara Prefectural Koriyama Senior High School in 1998, with plans of becoming a firefighter, but was unable to pass a required test due to his near-sightedness. Yamagami did not attend university due to his family's financial problems, and instead attended a vocational school with financial support from his uncle, a since-retired lawyer.
Family[]
Yamagami's father Nakauchi committed suicide by jumping from the apartment building on December 31, 1984 when Yamagami was four years old and Tsuya was five years old. Nakauchi died at the age of thirty seven and Toichiro was thirty nine when Nakauchi died. Yamagami's older brother Tsuya Tetsuya who was born in 1979, who had a longtime struggle with lymphoma which led to him losing eyesight in one eye, was not able to afford medical treatment; he died by suicide at the age of 36 by hanging in the kitchen on November 8, 2015. This greatly impacted Yamagami, according to his uncle. Yamagami's younger sister Koyama Tetsuya and mother Ako refused to be interviewed by the media. They are 37 and 69 years old respectively at the time of Abe's assassination. For about a month after the assassination, Yamagami's mother lived in Toichiro's home, before she moved to Osaka alone under the assistance of someone from the Unification Church. Yamagami's maternal uncle, the younger brother of Yamagami's mother, died in a traffic accident; Yamagami's maternal grandmother died in 1982, which shocked Yamagami's mother. She is reportedly still a member of the Unification Church after Abe's assassination and is apologetic for the church over her son's alleged crimes. Yamagami's paternal uncle, Toichiro Tetsuya (January 27, 1945) the older brother of Nakauchi, who provided many accounts about Yamagami's family, was 76 years old when Abe was assassinated. Originally working in the construction contractor industry, he obtained an attorney's licence and started his own legal consulting firm in Osaka. Despite being a lawyer himself, he will not represent Yamagami during the latter's criminal proceedings. After Nakauchi's death by suicide on December 31, 1984 he had been providing financial aid to Yamagami's family for about 20 million yen, up until 2020 when Japan was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yamagami's mother often asked Toichiro for money to donate to the Unification Church while neglecting her children, to the point that Toichiro once threw a cup of tea on her in a fit of rage. For the whole year since the assassination, Yamagami refused to respond to his mother's requests for visitation in the detention centre, while he was reading and expressing appreciation to letters from his supporters.