Japan ex-PM Shinzo Abe’s killer appeals sentence

TOKYO: The gunman convicted of shooting dead former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022 has appealed his life sentence, his lawyer told AFP Wednesday.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, was found guilty two weeks ago at the Nara District Court and jailed for life for using a homemade gun to assassinate Abe during an outdoor campaign event.
“Today, I filed the motion to appeal,” court-appointed defense counsel Masaaki Furukawa said.
Furukawa said the move was “an opportunity to correct the unjust lower-court ruling.”
The lawyer declined to discuss Yamagami’s intentions regarding the appeal, including whether he was seeking to fight the guilty verdict or reduce the sentence.
The trial will now move to the Osaka High Court in the western commercial hub, Furukawa said, adding it was not immediately clear when the appeal will begin.
Abe’s shooting forced a reckoning in a country with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church.
Yamagami’s case drew some public sympathy as his defense team argued that the attack was triggered by his mother’s blind donations to the Church that pushed his family into bankruptcy.
Abe had spoken at events organized by some of the Church’s groups. The sect supported his Liberal Democratic Party in elections.