Shooter of former Japanese PM Abe appeals life sentence
Tetsuya Yamagami, the man who fatally shot former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, filed an appeal on Wednesday against his life sentence.
Tetsuya Yamagami, the man who fatally shot former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, filed an appeal on Wednesday against his life sentence.
During the hearing at the Nara District Court, Tetsuya Yamagami said, "It is true. There is no doubt that I did it." Yamagami (45) is accused of killing Abe with a handmade firearm during an election stump speech in Japan's Nara on July 8, 2022.
While Abe's death sent shockwaves throughout the world, this also revealed a dark side of Japanese politics as many lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are not only members but also patrons of the UC. This malaise has spread so deep that it has affected the lives of many common men as politicians patronise the UC and use the donation money on projects that go against the interests of the citizens and the nation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday attended the state funeral of assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo.
Some 20,000 police officers have been reportedly being deployed for the security at the event being held at the Nippon Budokan arena in central Tokyo which is estimated to cost taxpayers $1.65 billion yen ($11 million).
The Tokyo Olympics have become the latest sporting event and possibly the biggest of them all to be rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Japan PM Shinzo had earlier pledged to host the Tokyo Olympics as scheduled and refused to declare the COVID-19 pandemic an emergency in his country.
The coronavirus has infected more than 700 people across Japan and been linked to 21 deaths. Separately, 700 people on board a cruise ship that docked near Tokyo last month were also infected.
For Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister, this is the biggest test since returning to office in 2012. Shinzo Abe has been criticised for an initial lack of leadership and he abruptly took steps to close schools leaving parents and employers scrambling. It is rather unfortunate that instead of cooperating to tackle the new global menace, both the Asian nations, Japan and South Korea, continue to suffer from the shadow of history. Both nations have close economic ties and are also major US allies, with democracies and market economies faced with a rising China and nuclear-armed North Korea. It is clearly the wrong time to invoke the past to address the present.
The talk took place hours after Donald Trump suggested postponing the Olympic Games, scheduled to begin on July 24, to avoid "empty stadiums".
