Abe assassin pleads guilty as Trump meets with Japan’s new prime minister

The man accused of fatally shooting former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pleaded guilty Tuesday as the country’s new prime minister hosted President Donald Trump.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, appeared in court while Trump was in the country to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, widely described as Abe’s ideological heir, someone Trump frequently praises. Takaichi aligns with the former prime minister’s desire to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution and strengthen the country’s defense capabilities.

On Monday, Trump said he had heard that Takaichi was “a great ally and friend of Shinzo Abe, who was my friend.”

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Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspected assassin of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, leaves a police station in Nara, western Japan, July 10, 2022. (Nobuki Ito/Kyodo News via AP, File)

Yamagami pleaded guilty to the charges read by prosecutors, the Associated Press reported, citing broadcaster NHK. Several media outlets reported that Yamagami wore a black shirt and gray pants and had his hair tied up.

“Everything is true. There is no doubt that I did all this,” Yamagami said when a Nara District Court judge asked him to plead guilty, The Japan Times reported. The outlet added that the suspect said he would consult his lawyers on legal matters.

The AP reported that Yamagami is accused of fatally shooting Abe with a homemade firearm while the former prime minister was giving a speech because of a grudge against the controversial Unification Church, which he said was linked to Abe as well as other politicians.

Although Yamagami pleaded guilty, his lawyers reportedly objected to the details of the charges against him. The Japan Times reported that lawyers argued that the homemade weapon he used should not be considered a firearm under Japanese law at the time of the shooting. The law was changed after Abe’s assassination.

Yamagami reportedly told authorities that his mother made massive donations to the church, which led to the family’s financial collapse, according to the AP. The Unification Church was founded in South Korea a year after the end of the Korean War in 1953.

A portrait of Abe Shinzo, former Japanese Prime Minister, on an altar set up near where he was assassinated on Friday in front of Yamato-Saidaiji Station on July 10, 2022, in Nara, Japan. (Jinhee Lee/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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The trial is taking place in Nara, in the west of the country, and is expected to end in mid-December, according to the AP, citing the Kyodo news agency.

Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister since World War II. When Abe was assassinated in 2022, Trump issued a statement saying it was “very bad news for the world.”

“Few know what a great man and leader Shinzo Abe was, but history will teach them and be kind. He was a unifier like no other, but above all, he was a man who loved and cherished his beautiful country, Japan. Shinzo Abe will be greatly missed. There will never be another like him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2022.

President Donald Trump watches as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a dinner at the Trump estate at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, April 18, 2018. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

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Upon his arrival in Japan on Monday, Trump praised Takaichi, 64, who is Japan’s first female prime minister. She came to power earlier this month after former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba resigned following the loss of the Liberal Democratic Party’s majority in the upper house in July.

Trump left the Japan leg of his Asia trip with trade and rare earth deals signed, ushering in what he and Takaichi called a “golden age” of U.S.-Japan relations. He told Takaichi that the United States would be there for “anything you want, any favors you need, anything…to help Japan,” the BBC reported.

Speaking to U.S. troops aboard the USS George Washington at Japan’s Yolosuka Naval Base, Trump said the first batch of missiles for Japan’s F-35 fighter jets “will arrive this week.”

President Donald Trump, along with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, speaks to military personnel aboard the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier docked at a U.S. naval base, in Yokosuka, Tuesday, October 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

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Trump praised the U.S.-Japan alliance, calling it “one of the most remarkable relationships in the world.”

Takaichi, sharing the stage with Trump, said Japan was “committed to fundamentally strengthening its defense capability” and “ready to contribute even more proactively to peace and stability in the region.”

Efrat Lachter and Bradford Betz of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.