https://www.scmp.com/rss/524200/feed The latest news and top stories on Tetsuya Yamagami. He is identified as the perpetrator in the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yamagami served in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years, from 2002 to 2005, achieving the rank of Leading Seaman. After his military service, he held various short-term part-time roles, including a forklift operator position from 2020 to 2022. He was unemployed at the time of his arrest. His actions stemmed from a personal grievance... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse The gunman accused of killing Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe pleaded guilty on Tuesday, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world. The slaying forced a reckoning in a country with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church. “Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to the murder of the... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3330643/former-japanese-prime-minister-shinzo-abes-killer-pleads-guilty-everything-true?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3330643/former-japanese-prime-minister-shinzo-abes-killer-pleads-guilty-everything-true?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Oct 2025 10:17:23 +0000 Julian Ryall Julian Ryall Japan dramatically ramped up security as US President Donald Trump arrived in Tokyo on Monday, with 18,000 police officers on duty and a specialist emergency response team on constant alert for the American leader’s three-day visit. An incident on Friday suggested that elevated levels of security for the occasion are warranted, with a police officer stationed outside the US embassy in central Tokyo attacked by a man with a knife. The man, who has been arrested, was stopped after police believed... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3330476/japan-high-alert-trumps-visit-amid-concern-over-lone-wolf-attacks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3330476/japan-high-alert-trumps-visit-amid-concern-over-lone-wolf-attacks?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:12 +0000 Kyodo Kyodo The trial of a man indicted for killing former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, allegedly due to a grudge against the Unification Church, will begin next week, three years after the shooting shed light on the church’s links to politicians. Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, is expected to plead guilty to the murder of Abe, post-war Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, with his defence team likely to call for leniency, saying his upbringing was marked by “religious abuse”, according to sources close to the... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3330308/shinzo-abe-shooter-expected-plead-guilty-trial-begins-next-week?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3330308/shinzo-abe-shooter-expected-plead-guilty-trial-begins-next-week?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Oct 2025 09:08:04 +0000 Kyodo Kyodo Lawyers helping victims of the Unification Church’s aggressive donation solicitation practices in Japan said on Thursday that an arbitration had been concluded, ordering the church to pay a total of more than 50 million yen (US$340,000) in damages to three former believers in their eighties – the first such agreement between the two parties. The arbitration case filed with the Tokyo District Court was one of over 180 cases brought by victims seeking around 6 billion yen over the issue, which... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3327704/japanese-court-orders-unification-church-pay-us340000-3-over-donations-scam?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3327704/japanese-court-orders-unification-church-pay-us340000-3-over-donations-scam?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Oct 2025 01:42:43 +0000