Yamakami Suspect Writes in Letter & SNS about “Surprising Feelings for Mother and Abe”

I noticed the letter on July 13, five days after the incident. When I read the letter, I had this impression. I read the letter and got the following impression: “It is a very well organized letter. It must have been written by a smart person. I felt a sense of familiarity with the letter because it contained condemnations of the former Unification Church. However, the letter was sent to Okayama City. It is about two hours by bus from Matsue, where I live. I regret that they could have handled the situation differently if they had come directly to me.

Kazuhiro Yonemoto, a resident of Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, received a letter from Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, the man who shot and killed former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (67 years old).

Yonemoto is a freelance journalist who has posted critical articles on his blog against the former Unification Church (now the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification), which the suspect’s mother joined. Yamakami is believed to have posted the letter from Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, where Abe’s speech was held the day before the incident (July 7). Inside the letter, he wrote of his complicated feelings toward the former Unification Church and his family.

The letter contained a series of lies that parents can tell because they have no regard for their children or family, evil acts filled to the core that there is no way to stop, and therefore never-ending conflict and destruction that lies ahead.

The main content of the letter is the process of family disintegration. The main content of the letter is the process of family disintegration, which began when his mother joined the former Unification Church in the early 1990s.

From my mother’s joining the church, to her wasting over a hundred million dollars, to the collapse of the family, to bankruptcy…. My teenage years passed with this process. It is no exaggeration to say that the experiences I had during that time distorted my entire life.

It is the height of disrespect to equate the Unification Church with the Unification Church.

According to what Yamagami’s uncle revealed to the press, his father committed suicide in 1984. Furthermore, his mother joined the former Unification Church in 1991 because she was troubled by her brother’s suffering from childhood cancer. Her donations to the church are said to have totaled more than 100 million yen.

In his letter, Yamagami described the former Unification Church and the society that allowed its existence as a “disgrace to mankind. What is surprising is that he has a calm view of Mr. Abe, the murderer. In the letter, he writes, “Abe is not the original enemy. Abe is not the original enemy. He is just one of the most influential Unification Church sympathizers in the real world. For Yamagami, the “original enemy” was probably the head of the former Unification Church, which had ruined his family.

Yamagami started a blog in October 2007. Here, too, he posted an unexpected assessment of Mr. Abe.

“The inability to recognize the merits of the Abe administration is a fatal distortion.

I know you have something to say to the Abe administration, but to equate him with the Unification Church is indeed the height of rudeness.

He also expressed no small amount of affection for his mother, who had joined the old Unification Church and harbored a strong grudge against it.

I made an effort. For her sake.

I wanted to believe in her.

This affection for his mother and Mr. Abe gradually faded as his life became more difficult and difficult. He gradually lost his ability to make calm judgments.

Yamakami’s mother made a huge donation to the former Unification Church, and the suspect gave up his university entrance exam despite graduating from one of Nara Prefecture’s leading preparatory schools. He later joined the Maritime Self-Defense Force, but family conflicts intensified and life became difficult.

His mother went bankrupt in 2002. Yamakami was unable to afford to eat, and attempted suicide in an attempt to save his sisters with the insurance money. On the day of the incident when he shot Mr. Abe, he was about 600,000 yen in debt and had almost no money on his person. He must have been exhausted both mentally and physically.

With no family close by to rely on, the suspect Yamakami was trapped. At the end of his letter, he writes

I have no time to think about the political implications and consequences of Abe’s death.