On July 8, Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, died at a campaign event in the city of Nara.
Police arrested the alleged killer, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, after he Abe with a homemade gun.
Yamagami told the police he did not hold a “political grudge” against Abe, but was rather motivated by grievances he alleged Abe was connected to, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper
But on Russian state TV, sinologist Nikolai Vavilov declared that the United States was behind Abe’s assassination. Vavilov provided no evidence but claimed that in the East, “political assassinations are usually political suicides” carried out through some form of “self-immolation.” He said people do not express their political positions by killing others.
He speculated that Abe was killed because Japan did not want to become a base for “war against China” and for “Taiwan operations,” adding the United States is “putting maximum pressure on the Japanese government.”
“What is happening now is a political assassination, sewn with white thread, actually carried out by the hands of the Americans, to show, most importantly, to other leaders, who is next,” Vavilov said on "60 Minutes," the Rossiya 1 channel’s prime time talk show.
That claim is false.
The alleged killer’s grudge was reportedly personal in nature. Neither Yamagami nor his motives had any U.S. connection. Politically, Abe’s assertive posture rankled China, not the United States.
Since Abe’s death, more has become known about what inspired the killing. Yamagami told investigators that the motive for the killing was the hardship his family experienced because of a religious group, later identified as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church).
“My family joined that religion, and our life became harder after donating money to the organization,” Yamagami told police, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun
“I had wanted to target the top official of the organization, but it was difficult," the paper reported. "So, I took aim at Abe since I believed that he was tied (to the organization). I wanted to kill him.”
On July 11, the Unification Church, whose followers are popularly known as “Moonies,” confirmed Yamagami’s mother is a member.
Yamagami told investigators that Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, had "contributed to the expansion of (the religious group)."
That motivated him to kill Kishi's grandson, former Prime Minister Abe, , citing Japanese broadcaster NHK.
However, a Unification Church spokesperson that neither Abe nor Yamagami were members.
Yamagami was a forklift operator. He left the job in April, saying he suffered from poor health. He lived in an apartment roughly three kilometers from the site of the shooting. Other homemade guns and explosives were reportedly found at his apartment.
A neighbor described hearing “a sound similar to one using a saw to cut a tree” at Yamagami’s apartment at night, The Asahi Shimbun r.
Abe was generally described as pro-American conservative and a Japanese nationalist. For example, in July 2007 that Abe’s “core vision of making Japan more assertive on security issues enjoyed American support.”
President Abe’s murder “a tragedy for Japan and for all who knew him.”
“Abe spared no effort to push for the progress of Taiwan-Japan relations for many years.”
A long-standing goal of Abe was to bolster the capabilities and scope of operations of Japan’s military. Japan’s pacifist constitution, by the United States after World War II, forbids the country from making war.
Abe unsuccessfully to amend the national charter “to clarify the legal status” of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and ramp up the role of the military in Japan’s “most severe” security environment “in post-war history.”
However, he boosting military spending and the scope of permissible military action.
In 2014, Abe announced his government had reinterpreted Article IX of Japan’s constitution, which renounces war as a sovereign right, to allow Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to use military action to protect its allies. That gave Japanese forces a legal basis to fight overseas for the first time since World War II.
The United States welcomed that move.
"Japan has ... every right to equip themselves in the way they deem necessary," then State Department spokeswoman at the time. "We encourage them to do that in a transparent manner, and we remain in touch with them about these important issues."