<figure id="attachment_253829" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2067px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253829"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="7d691d5a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/17103dac095868f9fe76d79046b4f4a5.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253829" class="wp-caption-text">Yamakami, the suspect, watches the timing of the crime behind former Prime Minister Abe&#8217;s back. He was looking up the schedule of his speeches and was targeting former Prime Minister Abe.</figcaption></figure>
Why did Yamagami hold a grudge against the Unification Church? Why did he target former Prime Minister Abe? To understand why, we need to look back at the suspect&#8217;s life.
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After his father died when he was a child, the suspect moved with his brother and sister to live with his grandfather in Nara Prefecture. At the time, the Yamagami family was relatively well-off.
 The Yamagami family lived with their grandfather. His grandfather ran a construction company and owned some real estate. Tetsuya&#8217;s mother once gave me a tour of the apartment. I don&#8217;t think his mother had any particular job&#8221; (neighborhood resident).
The suspect, Yamagami, is believed to have lived in his grandfather&#8217;s house until he was a high school student.
 The older brother was one year older than Tetsuya-kun. His sister was three to four years younger. The older brother and Tetsuya often played baseball together when they were in elementary school. My brother had a bump on his neck and was weak. Tetsuya, on the other hand, was athletic, but I got the impression that he was just a quiet kid,&#8221; said a classmate of Yamagami&#8217;s brother.
In junior high school, Yamagami was a member of the basketball club. He was a regular member of the basketball team, taking advantage of his natural athleticism. A classmate from junior high school said, &#8220;There were about 30 members of the club in the same grade.
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 He was a regular among about 30 students in the same grade, so he was a good basketball player. Everyone called him by the nickname &#8216;Kotetsu. He had a quiet personality. He rarely spoke on his own. However, he was not bullied and got along well with the other club members. Besides, I was one of the top students in my class.
In high school, he went on to one of the best preparatory schools in the prefecture. He was a member of the cheerleading squad and was as diligent in his studies as ever.
He had no difficulties in his life, and there were no problems in his school life. However, the circumstances surrounding Yamagami&#8217;s life changed drastically after the death of his grandfather.
 It was in the late 1990s,&#8221; he said. After his grandfather passed away, his mother had to raise three children by herself. She inherited her grandfather&#8217;s company, so I don&#8217;t think she immediately faced financial difficulties, but I think she went through a lot of hardships. At that time, there were a lot of Unification Church recruiters around here, too. &#8230;&#8230;&#8221; (neighborhood resident)
According to a July 11 press conference by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (former Unification Church), Yamagami&#8217;s mother joined the church around 1998. This coincides with the time of her grandfather&#8217;s death. The grandfather&#8217;s house was sold and the family moved to another house in Nara Prefecture, but the mother continued to donate money to the church, and around 2002 their lives went to ruin.
Journalist Eito Suzuki, who covers the former Unification Church, said, &#8220;I have been told by people involved with the former Unification Church that they are not involved.
 According to a source in the former Unification Church, the suspect&#8217;s mother was famous as a &#8220;philanthropist. In the church, a &#8216;donor&#8217; is someone who has donated 100 million yen or more.
After serving in the Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years from 2002, Yamakami worked as a temporary worker at a factory in Kyoto Prefecture from 2008.
FRIDAY obtained important documents showing the state of mind of the suspect Yamagami at the time. It is an e-mail he sent to a certain counseling agency (see below). It is dated May 8, 2004, about two years after the family&#8217;s collapse, and the subject line of the e-mail reads, &#8220;About the Unification Church. Perhaps he was troubled by his mother&#8217;s infatuation with the Unification Church and was trying to seek outside help.
In the aforementioned former Unification Church press conference, it was also revealed that around &#8217;09, the mother of the suspect, Yamagami, once left the church. There may have been some desperate persuasion by her sons. However, around &#8217;17, some eight years later, the mother returned to the cult.
 She said, &#8220;Five years ago coincided with the time when instructions were issued within the former Unification Church to re-invite believers who had left the church. The method was to have close followers contact them and invite them to meetings and events.
How desperate was the suspect Yamagami when his mother returned to the church? According to his statement, the suspect Yamakami began making guns from YouTube around last spring. At first, he aimed at the head of the cult, but &#8220;it was difficult to make contact with him. It was then that he came across a video message from former Prime Minister Abe on the Internet.
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On September 12, &#8217;21, a large-scale online event was held by the Union for Peace in the Firmament (UPF), an affiliate of the former Unification Church. Prime Minister Abe sent a video message to the event, praising former Unification Church President Han Hak-chul-soo, saying, &#8220;I would like to pay tribute to President Han Hak-chul-soo and all of you for your efforts to resolve conflicts around the world, especially for the peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula.
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The suspect was convinced of the connection when he saw this video message. He stated that he felt he had no choice but to kill her.
The connection between former Prime Minister Abe and the church goes back to his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. When the Unification Church-affiliated political group &#8220;International Victory Coalition&#8221; was formed in 1968, former Prime Minister Kishi cooperated with it. After that, he is said to have continued to give speeches in front of his followers and hold dialogues with the guru.
 The &#8220;close relationship was inherited, and in &#8217;06, former Prime Minister Abe sent a congratulatory telegram to an event hosted by the &#8216;UPF.'&#8221; In 2010 and 2012, former Prime Minister Abe himself spoke at regular meetings and symposiums of affiliated organizations, and it must have been advantageous for him to maintain a relationship with a religious order that could count not only on the organization&#8217;s reported 80,000 votes, but also on the dispatch of personnel during elections. It must have been advantageous for former Prime Minister Abe to maintain a relationship with the church, not only because of the 80,000 votes it is said to receive but also because he could count on the church to dispatch personnel during elections.
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It is not clear to what extent Yamagami knew about the relationship between the former Unification Church and former Prime Minister Abe. However, it is a fact that because of the &#8220;close ties,&#8221; Prime Minister Abe sent a video message to the suspect, which prompted him to commit the murder.
Masaki Kito, a lawyer with the National Association of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, said.
 It is not uncommon for people like Ms. Yamagami&#8217;s mother to become so involved in the church that she goes bankrupt. There is no doubt that the old Unification Church still has a quota for donations. A target amount is imposed, and believers are severely reprimanded if they fail to meet it. The damage caused by large donations is ongoing.
The former Unification Church told us in an interview with this magazine
 In the past, there were some church leaders who gave excessive guidance regarding donations,&#8221; the former Unification Church told the magazine. However, there has been no problematic behavior since the declaration of compliance in 2009.
He replied.
Without clarifying the donation system in the background and the relationship between former Prime Minister Abe and the former Unification Church, the &#8220;true motive&#8221; will not be revealed.
<figure id="attachment_253835" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 3567px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253835"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9458d3ad"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/496263fd7cde2b9ad18a3d6a2effa891.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253835" class="wp-caption-text">A scene from an online meeting of &#8220;UPF&#8221; in September &#8217;21. It is believed that the suspect Yamakami decided to commit the crime after watching the video.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_253831" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1608px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253831"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b365a372"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/d3fc4616ba5fe0630055ed066115f822.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253831" class="wp-caption-text">The cult&#8217;s facility in Nara Prefecture where the suspect Yamakami is said to have &#8220;test-fired&#8221; his homemade gun before dawn on July 7, the day before the incident.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_253830" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2500px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253830"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2aa52c68"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/d39d35502e685f60f62b92234c93fd0c.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253830" class="wp-caption-text">In May 2004, about two years after the collapse of the cult, Yamagami sent an e-mail to a counseling agency.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_253833" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1965px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253833"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="fd52394a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/ae4005050139b597a949795ae408bc32.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253833" class="wp-caption-text">High school graduation album. He wrote &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221; about his future dream. He was in the top class in his studies since elementary school.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_253832" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2126px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253832"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="58661e81"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/db106cc1fb0af491ba5b4f00c6a46a7a.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253832" class="wp-caption-text">In high school, Yamagami was a member of the cheerleading squad. He was nicknamed &#8220;leader of the troupe&#8221; and had no trouble with those around him.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_253834" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1885px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-253834"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="1877ad1c"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/07/361251dc114d8933d1f8a3b0abe02a06.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-253834" class="wp-caption-text">Yamakami is facing prosecution. The Nara District Public Prosecutors Office has decided to conduct a mental evaluation to determine whether or not he is criminally responsible.</figcaption></figure>
From the July 29 and August 5, 2022 issues of FRIDAY

 So Kinoshita (affiliated facility) Masahiro Kawayanagi (sent to prosecutors)

 The suspect's resentment toward the Unification Church was behind the shooting of former Prime Minister Abe. The main reason is that his mother's life was ruined by her repeated donations to the church, but a surprising connection between the church and former Prime Minister Abe has come to light.

Unification Church “SOS” E-mail” sent by Yamagami was obtained!

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