Tetsuya Yamagami was angry.
His father had died of suicide when he was just four years old.
His older brother had died the same way in 2015, unable to afford medical treatment for lymphoma.
And his mother, a devout member of the controversial Unification Church – also known as “the Moonies” – had donated more than 100 million yen ($938,464) in the search for salvation.
The family was bankrupt. His employers told media he began calling in sick repeatedly, before finally resigning.
His anger narrowed.
“[I felt] I would make them realise some day,” Yamagami said later.
“I thought the meaning of my life was to take revenge on the church or harm it.”
And by July 2022, he had decided on the target for his revenge – former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The events that unfolded – ending ultimately in Mr Abe’s death – would send shock waves across Japan and around the world.
A family drawn into the Unification Church's web
Yamagami's mother began attending Unification Church meetings before his father's death.
The church gatherings, she said, gave her some relief from a troubled home.
"Due to work-related issues, [my husband] became like an alcoholic and depressed, and he was recuperating at home," she told a court.
"Seeing him drink at home made me irritated, and I treated the children harshly."
But her "leaving the children behind" to attend, as well as the growing monetary offerings, caused more stress in the family.
Yamagami's father died in 1984.
His uncle, who declined to be named, said in an interview with Japanese outlet Toyo Keizai his sister-in-law "needed to cling to something in order to stay alive".
"Three years earlier, her mother had died suddenly … in her second year of junior high school, her younger brother [also] died in a traffic accident," he said.
"Her eldest son was diagnosed with lymphoma shortly after he was born … he lost sight in one eye.
"With the misfortunes of her parents and siblings, her eldest son's serious illness, and her husband's suicide, it's not hard to understand why she would want to cling to something."
He said she had donated the money from her husband's life insurance to the church.
In the years that followed, she had sold her father's property and the family home, all to raise more funds for donation.
The family was left in financial ruin.
In 2002, Yamagami joined the Japanese Navy, having been unable to pass a firefighter's exam because of his poor eyesight.
In 2004, his uncle said he received a call from Yamagami's other brother.
"Our mother went to Korea and hasn't come back since," he told him.
"We've run out of food and haven't eaten in days."
When the uncle visited the home, he said, "the refrigerator was empty, dirty dishes were left in the sink".
Emails read out in court showed his mother had travelled to South Korea to attend church events and "training" more than 30 times.
The following year, his uncle said, Yamagami changed the beneficiary on his life insurance from his mother, to his brother and sister.
He then attempted to take his own life. His mother, he said, continued to make donations despite declaring bankruptcy.
"I made donations quietly, thinking that if I left my children behind and devoted myself to the church, my family would get better," she later told a court.
"I thought [donating] would save my eldest son's life."
Her eldest son, Yamagami's older brother, took his own life in 2015.
The Abe political dynasty haunted by 'ghosts' of the past
At the same time as Tetsuya Yamagami's mother was becoming more entranced by the Unification Church, Shinzo Abe was making a name for himself in Japanese politics.
Mr Abe was born into a political dynasty.
His grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was a former prime minister. His father, Shintaro Abe, was a former foreign minister.
By 2006 he was Japan's youngest post-war prime minister, his first brief stint in the job marred by a series of political scandals.
In September of the following year, he resigned from the party due to ulcerative colitis, a type of chronic inflammatory bowel disease.
It would be another five years before he returned to the top job in 2012 — remaining largely unchallenged for almost a decade.
Andrew Levidis is an lecturer in modern Japanese history at the Australian National University.
Mr Abe, Dr Levidis told the ABC, had brought together "the conservative movement, the nationalists, religious groups, businesses".
"He was able to marshal an electoral coalition that was able to dominate Japanese politics," Dr Levidis said.
"It brought stability to what had been a succession of revolving door prime ministers."
But along with a political legacy, Mr Abe also inherited a longstanding relationship with the Unification Church.
The group had established itself as an anti-communist presence in Japan in the 1960s.
Their leader, according to Temple University's director of Asian Studies Jeff Kingston, portrayed himself as a "kingmaker in Japanese politics".
Introduced by a US ambassador, Sun Myung Moon and Mr Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, struck up a long-term relationship.
The Unification Church's headquarters were established next door to the Kishi home in the Tokyo suburb of Shibuya.
"His grandfather was instrumental in forging the alliance in the 1960s between the Unification Church and the Liberal Democratic Party," Dr Levidis said.
"So the historical resonance [of the assassination] is like the ghosts of the Cold War, or the sins of that era, were paid out on the grandson."
A handmade gun and growing 'disgust and hostility'
In June of 2022, the court heard, Yamagami quit his job.
By that time, he had accumulated debts of more than 2 million yen ($18,787) in his efforts to create a homemade gun.
He had planned to kill a leader of the church, even planning to attack Hak Ja Han with a knife or Molotov cocktail.
But his plans changed in September 2021, when Mr Abe delivered a video message to an event hosted by an organisation linked to the Unification Church.
"It continued to linger in the back of my mind, and my disgust and hostility gradually grew stronger," Mr Yamagami said.
"I thought he was at the centre of the relationship between the former Unification Church and politics, so I thought that any politician other than Mr Abe would have little meaning."
Before dawn on July 7, Yamagami shot at a church facility in Nara.
Asked why, he said: "In order to indicate my anger at the church."
That day he went to a campaign venue for the LDP in Okayama, where Mr Abe was giving a speech, but was unable to launch his attack.
On the way back to his home in Nara by train, he discovered Mr Abe was scheduled to deliver another campaign speech — outside a Nara train station.
He told the court he felt it "it was not a coincidence".
Mr Abe's planned speech was the kind of campaign event familiar to most in Japan, according to Dr Levidis.
"Last summer I spent three months in Japan, I was there for the elections," he said.
"You'd walk around and see really high-ranking politicians giving stump speeches on the streets.
"So it wasn't a unique thing. It was just a quick stop to support a local candidate."
The speech was in support of Kei Sato, an LDP councillor running for re-election. According to local media, the event had been widely advertised online.
The police and other officials had checked the site the night before, arranging a podium and the parking spot for Mr Abe's car.
"I thought it was a dangerous place that made it easy to attack former Prime Minister Abe from the cars and bicycles … behind him," one local official later recalled.
At 11:10am on July 8, the event began.
At 11:19am, Mr Abe arrived.
At 11:29am he began his speech.
At 11:30am, Yamagami approached from behind and fired his first shot — though the bullet missed, he continued to approach through the cloud of smoke the weapon released.
Seconds later — as security rushed into action — he fired his second shot, which hit his target.
'I still believe in the [church]'
Shinzo Abe was pronounced dead later that evening.
It would be more than three years before the trial of his killer would get underway, in October 2025.
Yamagami admitted to the killing, leaving his legal team to argue for a more lenient sentence due to his family's difficulties.
There were just 30 public seats available in the courtroom gallery, and hundreds lined up outside every morning to enter a lottery for them.
Yamagami entered quietly, according to The Japan Times.
He was led in daily, flanked by five prison escorts, and restrained with handcuffs and a rope around his waist.
He kept his head down.
In December, Mr Abe's widow, Akie Abe, appeared in court for the first and last time.
She sat behind the prosecution team, with a direct view of her husband's killer.
He bowed in her direction as he took the stand.
The following day — without her present — he apologised to the Abe family for the first time.
"It's undeniable that I caused Akie Abe and Abe's family members pain for the past three-and-a-half years because of the murder," he said.
"Even if I didn't have a grudge against them.
"I've lost family members myself so there is no excuse … I am deeply sorry for what I did."
In court, Yamagami's mother was surrounded by partitions to keep her hidden from the public gallery.
According to media reports of the trial, Yamagami did not look at her as she spoke.
Asked about her current religious beliefs, she said: "I still believe in the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification."
Her son was sentenced to life imprisonment on January 21, 2026.
Church corruption 'exposed to the harsh light of day'
The implications of the assassination and the allegations against the Unification Church have been high-profile and far-reaching.
Connections between Japan's conservative political sphere and the controversial religious group were laid bare, according to Dr Levidis.
"After the assassination of Abe, that alliance [between the church and the LDP] was exposed to the harsh light of day," he said.
"It's raised huge questions about the role of religious parties in Japan.
"This assassination transformed Japan, and we're still living with its repercussions at present."
By December of 2022, four members of the Japanese cabinet had resigned over alleged links to the church.
The group — which now calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification — was ordered to dissolve by a Tokyo court in March, 2025.
Japan's education ministry accused it of using fundraising and recruitment tactics that sowed fear in followers.
The court declared the church's problems were extensive and continuing, noting it was unlikely to reform voluntarily.
In December, the head of its Japanese branch announced his resignation.
"Our activities have caused deep distress to some individuals," Tomohiro Tanaka said in a news conference outside the organisation's headquarters.
But, he stressed, the church "has never committed a single crime".
In the years following his death, Mr Abe's former party has lost direction, according to Dr Levidis.
Just three months into the role, Japan's current female prime minister — once a protege of Mr Abe — has called a snap election for February 8.
"The conservative hegemony that ruled Japan basically unbroken … is in freefall," Dr Levidis said.
"It remains in control, the status quo holds, but its grasp has been fundamentally smashed."
