The man who allegedly killed former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday did not seem to be politically active, a source from his former dispatch company has said.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, was a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer in his 20s. He lived in an apartment in the city of Nara, but quit his job in May for health reasons, according to the person.
“I never felt he had political beliefs,” the person said. “I can’t connect him to the attack.”
Yamagami, who attended a public high school in Nara Prefecture, wrote in his graduation yearbook that he “didn’t have a clue” what he wanted to be in the future.
According to government officials, Yamagami served in the MSDF for two years and nine months through 2005 at the Kure base in Hiroshima Prefecture.
In the fall of 2020, he started working at a manufacturing company in the Kansai region, according to an official at the dispatch company in Osaka Prefecture.
There had been no reports of trouble from the manufacturer. But in April this year, Yamagami told the dispatch company that he wanted to quit because he was “tired,” and he left the job the following month.