Asia | Whydunnit

What drove Yamagami Tetsuya to kill Abe Shinzo?

Japan searches for motives behind the senseless attack

Tetsuya Yamagami, suspected of killing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is escorted by a police officer as he is taken to prosecutors, at Nara-nishi police station in Nara, western Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo July 10, 2022. Mandatory credit Kyodo via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. JAPAN OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN JAPAN.
|NARA

The omiyacho neighbourhood of Nara, an ancient capital in western Japan, is unremarkable. A tangle of quiet streets winds around boxy apartment blocks tightly packed together. Inside are standard-issue working-class Japanese flats: modest rectangular rooms with low ceilings, fluorescent lighting and the damp odour of a humid Japanese summer. In one such home, Yamagami Tetsuya (pictured) assembled the gun he used to kill Abe Shinzo, a former prime minister, on July 8th.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “States of mind”

ESG: Three letters that won’t save the planet

From the July 23rd 2022 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Asia

Protesters wear Taiwan People's Party former chairman Ko Wen-je's masks to protest against the perceived judicial injustice

Taiwan’s political drama is paralysing its government

Domestic dysfunction plays right into China’s hands

A man wears a Australian flag and a cork hat on Australia Day

An angry culture war surrounds Australia Day

Conservatives claim that wokeness is destroying the national holiday


Stills from Gayrat Dustov's video tirade on social media

The fate of a ranting driver raises doubts about the “new” Uzbekistan

It seems free speech is not so guaranteed after all


Indian politicians are becoming obsessed with doling out cash

Handouts are transforming the role of the state—perhaps for the worse

How to end the nightmare of Asia’s choked roads

The middle classes love cars but hate traffic

Can Donald Trump maintain Joe Biden’s network of Asian alliances?

Discipline and creativity will help, but so will China’s actions