JAPAN After Abe’s murder, new accusations of fraud against the Unification Church

The investigation consolidates the clue that connects the assassination of the former Japanese prime minister to Tetsuya Yamagami’s resentment: the family fortune would have been squandered by his mother in offerings to Reverend Moon’s sect. In a letter, the man described the politician as “one of the most influential supporters”, although the relationship did not appear to go beyond a political alliance.

Tokyo () – Ten days have passed since the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: there are many points to be clarified, but the many elements that have emerged so far consolidate as a motive a trail that leads to the unification church. It is a religious sect that was born in Korea in the 50s and that over the years also spread in Japan. After being arrested, Tetsuya Yamagami would have told the police that he was motivated by resentment against the religious group with which Abe had relations, according to Yamagami.

According to the investigation to date, Yamagami, Abe’s aggressor, intended to take revenge on the religious organization because his mother’s involvement in the sect had harmed the family’s well-being. Yamagami’s family revealed that, after becoming a member in the 1990s, his mother reportedly donated more than 100 million yen (about 715,000 euros) to the organization, of which 60 million came from her late husband’s life insurance and another 40 million was donated through the sale of family land. After being declared insolvent in 2002, her mother would have continued to donate sums to the sect. According to her family’s statement, Yamagami had to drop out of college due to financial difficulties in her family.

The Unification Church has a dark history of fraud and brainwashing, and it has been reported that the organization used to force its members to buy so-called “spiritual merchandise” and donate part of their proceeds. In recent days, several Japanese lawyers have come out to denounce the extortions perpetrated by the group against its members, based on the emotional manipulation of the subjects.

Yamagami had expressed his hostility towards the religious group on several occasions. Already in 2019, had premeditated an attack against the head of the Unification Church, who was due to visit Tokoname, not far from the city of Nara, in October of that year. the police too believes that Yamagami shot at the church building the day before the attack, which is very close to where the murder took place. According to the researchers, there is one more element: in a letter sent to a blogger critical of the groupa few days before the attack, Yamagami would have expressed his intention to kill the former prime minister for being “one of the most influential sympathizers of the Unification Church”, although he recognized that Abe was not “his original enemy”.

What is most striking, however, as the letter implicitly admits, is the fact that the former prime minister did not appear to have extremely close relations with the group. Police reported that Yamagami blamed Abe’s grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, for having invited the sect to Japan, but the grandson himself does not appear to have been particularly close to the Church beyond the usual political expediency. As a conservative-inspired religious group, the Unification Church has forged relationships with the Japanese right, as it has in many other countries. Abe has participated in some of the organization’s activities, but their involvement, for the moment, does not seem to go beyond the backstage of politics and religious movements. However, the investigations are just beginning. The truth is that the link between the PLD and the Unification Church is decades old and is a subject rarely discussed. No one knows where the investigation might lead.