Abe, 67, was pronounced dead by doctors at Nara Medical University Hospital on Friday at 5:03 p.m., local time, just over five hours after receiving a gunshot while delivering a campaign speech in front of a small crowd on the street.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, admitted to shooting Abe, Nara Nishi police said Friday during a news conference. Yamagami, who is unemployed, told investigators that he hates a certain group with whom he thought Abe was linked.
Police have not named the group.
Yamagami is being investigated as a “murder suspect” in a case to which 90 investigators have been assigned, according to police.
He was taken to the Nara district prosecutor’s office on Sunday morning.
Yamagami was described as a “totally normal” and apparently “serious” person by at least two people who had interacted with him, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported.
He was hired through an dispatch agency in October 2020 to work in the merchandise department of a factory in Kyoto prefecture, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing a “former senior colleague.” Nameless.
The former comrade characterized Yamagami as someone who kept himself.
“If it was work, he would respond, but he didn’t get into his private life. He seemed in soft mode,” the former colleague said, according to Kyodo news agency. The former colleague added that Yamagami “would have lunch alone in his car” and that “conversations with him were never diverted beyond the subject in question.”
The former colleague said there had been no problems with Yamagami during the first six months of his job, until he began to show “gradual neglect” of work practices, according to the Kyodo news agency.
In March, Yamagami began taking “unauthorized free time” and spoke of “heart problems” and other physical problems, despite having no previous problems with punctuality or attendance. His work ended on May 15, the agency reported.
An anonymous office agency employee who interviewed Yamagami for work described him as “totally normal,” but added that he “didn’t say much” and “had a slightly gloomy sense of humor with him.” Kyodo news agency.
What kind of weapon was fired?
The suspect used a homemade pistol in the shooting, police said, and images of the scene showed what appeared to be a weapon with two cylindrical metal cannons wrapped in black tape. Authorities later confiscated several handmade items resembling a gun from the suspect’s apartment.
The gun was a gun-like object measuring 40 centimeters (about 16 inches) long and 20 centimeters wide, police said.
Yamagami manufactured various types of weapons with iron tubes that were wrapped in duct tape, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported, citing police. Police found weapons with three, five and six iron pipes as barrels.
The suspect inserted bullets into his handmade weapon, parts of which he had bought online, police said, according to NHK. Police believe the suspect used the most powerful weapon he manufactured in the murder, NHK added.
What was the suspect’s plan?
The suspect told investigators he initially intended to kill Abe using explosives, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
Earlier, Yamagami planned to assassinate Abe at an event in Okayama, a prefecture about a three-hour drive from Nara, NHK reported.
“I was thinking of killing the former prime minister there (Okayama), but I saw that there were admission procedures at the entrance and I felt it would be difficult to get in,” he told investigators, according to NHK.
Nara police told CNN on Saturday that surveillance footage showed Yamagami leaving Yamato-Saidaiji station in Nara on Friday after arriving by train.
How have the security forces reacted?
At the time of the shooting, Abe was speaking in support of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidates ahead of the July 10 upper house elections. Although he resigned as Prime Minister of Japan in 2020 for health reasons, Abe continued to be an influential figure in the country’s political landscape and continued to campaign for the LDP.
Japan’s National Police Agency said it will review security arrangements made before Friday’s shooting, according to NHK. Security was in charge of Nara prefecture police, who drew up a security plan for the former prime minister while he was in the city.
The agency said several dozen Tokyo Metropolitan Police officers and security personnel were on duty and reportedly watched Abe from all sides during his speech, NHK said.