Japanese prosecutors indicted a man in his 40s on charges of fatally shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year in a crime that horrified the country and triggered a scandal over the ruling party’s links with a fringe religion.
Tetsuya Yamagami was indicted after he was held for months of psychological evaluation and then found fit to stand trial, the Yomiuri newspaper and other local media said Friday. The suspected gunman was arrested on the scene for allegedly shooting Abe with a homemade firearm as the former premier was campaigning for his Liberal Democratic Party in July in the western city of Nara.
The suspect told police he targeted Abe, the country’s longest-serving premier, because of his ties with the South Korean-based group formerly known as the Unification Church. The suspect blamed the group for ruining his family by taking excessive donations from his mother.
