Abe Assassination: The Assassin's Mother Will Testify - But There Is a Detail All Media Forgot

Abe Assassination: The Assassin’s Mother Will Testify-But There Is a Detail All Media Forgot 10/27/2025 MASSIMO INTROVIGNE I A+ I A- I In 2009, all members of the Yamagami family, including the future killer, signed a settlement with the Unification Church and got 50 million yen back. by Massimo lntrovigne

Tetsuya Yamagami From X

The trial ofTet suya Yamagam i, the man who assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, is finally underway. And am ong the defense witnesses, one name stands o ut: his mother.

Yes, the same mother whose donations to the Unification Church (now the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) were blamed by Yamagami for the family’s financial collapse and his decision to punish Abe for supporting the Church. She will testify in court, likely in an effort to secure the most lenient sentence possible for her son. Also testifying is a scholar known for his anti-U nification Church bias-someone “Bitter Winter” has repeatedly criticized for parroting t he discredited anti-cult ideology and even collaborating with Chinese anti-cultists.

Yamagam i’s mother is still a member of the Church. And here is what no m edia outlet has mentioned-but “Bitter W inter” can document: in 2009 , the entire Yamagam i family, including the assassin himself, settled with the local believers’ group of the Unification Church and released all claims.

The settlement, signed on May 22, 2009, required the believers’ group to pay 50 million yen to the family. Tetsuya Yamagami himself signed the agreement, together with his mother, sister, and brother. It stated that once the believers’ group fulfilled its obligations, no fam ily member would pursue civil liability or criminal accusations against the Church or its affiliates regarding t he donations made by the future assassin’s mother.

Every party confirmed they had no rights or duties beyond what was agreed . The payments were com pleted over the following years, with Church members contributing. The settlement was designed to address t he fi nancial difficulties of the relatives-though Mrs. Yamagami herself confirmed that her donations had been voluntary and she remained a committed member.

Mrs. Yamagami went bankrupt in 2002. Her son killed Abe twenty years later. In between,

the Church paid 50 m illion yen to the fami ly. So w hy did the crime happen in 2022?

That question becomes e ven more pressing w hen we consider the t iming. Tetsuya Yamagam i w aited for t w enty years. He signed a settlement and continued to w ait. Could it be that in the end the assassin’s fragile m ind w as inflamed by his o n line interactions w ith the ant i-cult milieu and the media’s relentless hate campaign against the Unification Church?

This trial w ill no doubt be a spectacle. But the court-and the public-should also consider the tim ing and know w hat w as signed, w hat w as settled, and w hat w as paid . The t ruth is not alw ays loud. Sometimes, it’s buried beneat h decades of propaganda.

TAGGED W ITH: JA PA N. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, UN IFICAT ION CHURCH

Massimo lntrovigne Massimo lntrovigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. lntrovigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclo1;2edia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the lnterdisci1;2linarv. Journa l of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religi.Q. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for SecuritY. and Co-01;2eration in Euro1;2e (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.

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