Man Accused of Killing Shinzo Abe Has Mother in Unification Church, Reports Say

Tetsuya Yamagami is accused of murdering former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday, July 7, 2022. Police arrested him over the incident on July 8. According to reports, Yamagami said he was angry with an organization connected to Abe, and local media quickly identified that organization as the Unification Church, which is also nicknamed the “Moon sect.”

Reports differ on how the suspect’s motive has been described. One report says Yamagami was angry with the organization. Two others say he reportedly wanted revenge against the church by targeting the former prime minister.

On Monday, July 11, the Unification Church confirmed that Yamagami’s mother is a member. One account, attributed to an uncle, says the family joined the church in the 1990s after the mother became involved.

The Unification Church was founded in 1954 in Seoul by Sun Myung Moon, who was born in what is now North Korea. Reports describe the church as born in South Korea, where it adopted a fiercely anticommunist line that drew sympathy from the country’s military regime at the time. One report says the church was introduced to Japan in 1959. The church is now officially known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFPUM). One report says it has long cultivated ties with politicians.

The church’s legal and financial history has also drawn attention. One report says Moon was sentenced in the United States for tax evasion and spent more than a year in prison there in the early 1980s. Japanese lawyers have sued the church since 1987 for damages totaling 123.7 billion yen, about 900 million euros, according to one report. Another report says the church is now controlled by the widow of its founder, Hak Ja Han.

Membership figures are also disputed. In 2012, the organization claimed three million faithful worldwide. Experts, according to one report, say that figure was greatly exaggerated. Sun Myung Moon lived from 1920 to 2012.

Setting out these accounts side by side, with each source’s version kept distinct, is a matter of truth told fairly (Proverbs 18:17).