Tetsuya Yamagami, accused of assassinating former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, apologized for the first time to Abe's family during a hearing at Nara District Court. He acknowledged causing them 3½ years of pain despite harboring no grudge, stating he had no excuse given his own loss of family members. Abe's widow, Akie, attended the previous day's hearing but was absent on Thursday.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, offered his first apology to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's widow Akie and family during the 14th hearing at Nara District Court on December 4. "It's undeniable that I caused Akie Abe and Abe's family members pain for the past 3½ years because of the murder, even though I didn't have a grudge against them," he said, his voice quivering. "I've lost family members myself so there is no excuse. I am deeply sorry."
This came in the fifth hearing where Yamagami was questioned; on the previous day, he had stated he had never apologized to the family. Akie attended Wednesday's session but was not present Thursday.
Abe, 67, was shot at close range with a handmade gun while giving a campaign speech for a Liberal Democratic Party candidate in Nara on July 8, 2022. Yamagami has testified that he held a grudge against the Unification Church due to his mother's 100 million yen donations that bankrupted his family. Unable to target church leaders, he chose a politician he viewed as sympathetic, believing Abe was central to its political ties in Japan, introduced by Abe's grandfather Nobusuke Kishi.
Prosecution witness Dr. Hisashi Wada from Osaka Red Cross Hospital testified that a pre-indictment psychiatric evaluation found no mental disorder in Yamagami and deemed his motives understandable based on his circumstances, personality, and life history. Wada noted Yamagami said he "did not expect things to get this big," and identified two turning points: discovering his mother's large donations and his older brother's suicide. Yamagami welcomed a court-ordered dissolution of the Unification Church and the public attention on "second-generation" followers, saying it reflected how society should respond.