This post is a DeepL translation (partially revised by the blog administrator) of the following article.
本投稿は以下の記事のDeepL翻訳（一部、管理人修正済み）です。
About six months have passed since the shooting of former Prime Minister Abe. Tetsuya's brother did not receive adequate medical treatment, and his mother, who had left home, mumbled to his sister that she was sorry..." The family was torn apart because of the Unification Church...
On July 8, 2022, at around 11:30 a.m., former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was struck by a bullet while making a speech in support of the Upper House election in Nara Prefecture. Yamagami Tetsuya, 42, who was sent to prison on suspicion of murder, is currently in Osaka Detention Center. The deadline for his psychiatric expert testimony is January 10, and the suspect is scheduled to be indicted for murder. The murder of the former prime minister, a case of unparalleled magnitude in the postwar era, was committed by Yamagami.... We take a look back at the background of the case, based on the testimony of his uncle.
Sunao Matsuba
Editorial Department News Team, Shueisha Online
If only we had let him divorce then..... Yamagami's father killed himself and that drove his mother felt cornered
The Unification Church, the "original enemy" of Tetsuya Yamagami, 42, who lost his mother and destroyed his family, has been taken up as a major issue in the Diet, and the Victims Relief Bill has been passed. The winds against the UC have never been stronger.
The act of Yamagami, who used a gun and took a precious life, is unforgivable under any circumstances, but it is also true that public opinion has shown great sympathy for Yamagami's upbringing.
We asked his paternal uncle, 78, who has supported Yamagami since he was a child and continues to do his best to support him even now that he is in jail, about what kind of person Yamagami was.
"I think Tetsuya is happy. He has lived his whole life thinking that he hates the Unification Church. I think he is now at a time of peace that he has never had before. I just don't know what he will do from now on. ......" (uncle)
When I told his uncle, who was thinking about his nephew's "future," that I wanted to hear about Yamagami's childhood, he hesitated at first, but then, puffing on his cigarette and occasionally looking at the upper right corner of the room, began to talk about his memories of his nephew.
"When my mother was alive, I used to meet my three children, and Tetsuya, at the station, have dinner, ask them how they were doing, and give him some money. I was working at the time and couldn't see him, so my mother used to say to my wife, 'Tetsuya and his siblings are in trouble. My mother would say to my wife, "Tetsuya and the others are in need, so how much do you want? I did as she asked and gave her the money. From 1985, the year after my brother's death, until 1994, when I learned that Tetsuya's mother had turned to the Unification Church, I had been supporting them. But when her father died in 1998, I resumed my support and continued to support her until 2017."
Yamagami's father took his own life in 1984. Three years before that, Yamagami's mother lost her own mother, and her uncle speculates that she lost her emotional prop. Even before the death of her husband, she was already mentally unstable. Yamagami's father graduated from Kyoto University's Faculty of Engineering and worked for a major general contractor before joining a construction company owned by her mother's father.
The younger brother (Yamagami's father) did not match the personality of his wife's father. He had a hard time, and he wanted to do research after graduating from graduate school. But he couldn't get along with a field that prioritized profit. Working for his father, who prioritized profit, was too much for him.
One year before he committed suicide, he brought Tetsuya's older brother back here and told me and my mother that he wanted a divorce. But my brother and I knew that our mother had gone through a hard time after her divorce, so we said, 'You can't sacrifice your children'. Later, when I asked his wife about it, she told me that my brother said, "I have no place to go back to". I think that if I had taken him in at that time, it wouldn't have turned out like this, but that was fate, too.
Yamagami's brother, who had childhood cancer, lost one eye at age 10.
When we talked to him, Yamagami's uncle sometimes uttered the word "Tenmei" ("The Will of Heaven"). It is a family motto of the Yamagami family.
"For Yamagami's mother, her own mother (Tetsuya's grandmother) was the pillar of support. When her mother passed away, her relationship with her father (Tetsuya's grandfather) became unstable, and my brother (Tetsuya's father) also died, which led her to the Unification Church."
She lost her loving mother and husband, and it was too hard for her to support her three children, ages 5, 4, and still in her belly.
This is also stated on Yamagami's Twitter page.
"I was a fake. To be loved by my father, my mother, and my grandfather. I was four years old when I refused my father's request for help in his hospital bed, in response to my mother's expectations. Shortly thereafter, my father jumped off the hospital roof. I killed him."
What put Yamagami's mother in an even more difficult situation was the illness of her eldest son. Yamagami's older brother had been diagnosed with childhood cancer. In addition to raising three young children, she had to take care of her eldest son.
Yamagami's depleted love for his mother is vividly described on Twitter.
"Of my three siblings, the older brother underwent surgery to open his head shortly after birth, and around the age of 10 he was surgically blinded in one eye. Although he was not handicapped, his mother's heart was always with his older brother. My younger sister never knew her father. I tried. For my mother."
The death of her own mother, her husband's suicide, raising three young children, and her son's illnesses were too cruel a life for a single woman to bear.
Tetsuya's brother's suicide drove her into a corner.
In August 1994, a note left by his uncle's wife stated, "She became a member of the Unification Church."
When his uncle learned that the living expenses he had been supporting were going to the Unification Church, he temporarily cut off his financial support. Later, the uncle learned that Yamagami's mother had donated 60 million yen of her husband's life insurance money to the Unification Church.
"In 1998, when the father of Yamagami's mother died, she sold the land and house she had inherited and donated another 40 million yen. In total, he put about 100 million yen into the Unification Church."
Her uncle revealed his memorable history with the Unification Church and Yamagami's mother.
"I think it was 2004 when I received a call from Tetsuya saying that there was no food in his house. My wife and I rushed to the house with sushi and 100,000 yen for unpaid electricity and other bills. When my wife opened the refrigerator, she found that there was nothing in it, because Yamagami's mother had gone to Korea and did not come back. After that, I started sending canned food as part of their allowance."
As his family was falling apart, Yamagami struggled to survive. He attended one of the best high schools in the prefecture, but gave up college due to financial difficulties. After attending a vocational school, he enlisted in the Maritime Self-Defense Force in 2002. However, in 2005, he attempted suicide. The reason was that he wanted to give the insurance money to his brother and sister. Yamagami changed the beneficiary of the insurance money from his mother to his brother, and was trying his best to support his family. (Red color was added by KIB)
"Her own child attempted suicide, but Yamagami's mother went to Korea and didn't come back.
At that time, only Tetsuya was living with my mother, but after learning of his brother and sister's destitution at New Year's 2005, he then attempted suicide in Hiroshima, where he was assigned.
Tetsuya said, 'The Unification Church destroyed my life. My sister and brother can't make ends meet,' he said. Also, "I want to pay for it with my life insurance." added he. After his suicide attempt, we were thinking of taking Tetsuya in, but my wife had just fallen ill and it was difficult."
Trying his best to live and rebuild his family, Yamagami obtained a certification as a financial planner, but more misfortune struck: in 2015, his older brother committed suicide.
"I was just laid up from cancer surgery myself. Tetsuya's brother called me and said he was going into the hospital and wanted me to follow him, but I couldn't move. When he asked me to follow him to the hospital, he meant he wanted me to pay for his treatment. In the end, he didn't receive any good treatment. After that, he committed suicide.
Some article said that Tetsuya's brother lost his mind and pointed a kitchen knife at me, but that is a big mistake. Tetsuya's brother never did that to me."
Ironically, in his graduation book as a child, Tetsuya's brother listed "president" as his dream for the future.
"Tetsuya's brother was really smart, as was Tetsuya. He was aiming for Tokyo University. In his room, there were books on philosophy and reference books for the entrance examination to the University of Tokyo. Tetsuya's brother was too sick to go outside, so he had no choice but to study."
However, the disease gradually took its toll on his brother's body, causing him to lose his thirst for life.
Yamagami, who had lost his brother, the only person who understood him, was driven to madness.
The casual routine of his mother and sister.
"I don't blame his mother. I believe it is all the Unification Church's fault. When I talk to her, we don't get along. I have been telling her for a long time that she should get proper treatment. Everyone is writing about her as if she is a demon mother, but she is just sick.
Her mother passed away, my brother (Tetsuya's father) committed suicide, her children got sick, and she herself could have died. She was in a situation where she herself could have died. She went to the Unification Church as if she was clinging to the church. No matter what I did to get her to leave the church, it was impossible."
Yamagami's Twitter account also describes the pain and suffering of his family.
"When I was 14 years old, the family broke up. My grandfather, who was over 70 and suffering from the collapse of the bubble economy, was furious with my mother, or more accurately, he was in despair. That's when he took out a kitchen knife."
The uncle said, "You can't just threaten them. I have to get her to undergo treatment. But how hard is it to get her to go to treatment? Everyone calls it mind control, but it's not that kind. Her brain has been damaged."
Why didn't the three siblings, including Yamagami, choose to say goodbye to their mother, who was involved in the Unification Church?
"She was their mother. Tetsuya's sister also said, 'Mom, mommy,' even while her mother was immersed in the Unification Church. No matter how many times she betrayed them, she is still a mother to all three of them."
On July 8, 2022, the day of the incident, the uncle immediately called Tetsuya's mother and sister to his house for protection, where they lived with their mother and sister for about a month.
He said, "When they came, they really looked different, like they were already practicing their faith. I was there for about 20 days. She ordered vegetables and other things from Amazon.com and started cooking here.
I did my best to avoid seeing them. He seemed to be having a lot of fun with her daughter. Seeing them together, I think that if it weren't for the Unification Church, they would have led this kind of life."
A life of mother and daughter living together without a care in the world.... If only Yamagami and her brother had been there, she could have had the ordinary, normal parent-child life that she so desperately wanted.
"Thank you, brother."
As the uncle was pulling weeds in the garden with Tetsuya's sister, his mother suddenly murmured from the living room.
She said, "Thank you for Tetsuya and Tetsuya's sister. I've never heard that before."
His mother left the next day, saying, "I want to hold the press conference..."
A life, with full of ordinary, everyday things... It was the former Unification Church that destroyed it.
They were living on the second floor of Yamagami's uncle's house when, unbeknownst to him, they received a call from the Unification Church. My uncle testified that at that moment, Tetsuya's mother's face changed.
"Her eyes looked different. One day before she left, she knocked on my door and said, 'Brother, I need to talk to you. She wanted to hold a press conference to talk about how sorry she was to the public, 'I am sorry for Mr. Abe. I told her to take it outside, and the next day she left with the cat she had brought with her. I don't know where she went from there."
Yamagami's sister, who had already left her uncle's house a bit earlier for work and was living alone, came to his house as soon as he informed her that her mother had left.
"That day, Tetsuya's sister called and texted her mother all day long, but she couldn't reach her at all. I went to bed at 2 or 3 a.m., but his sister seemed to have been contacting her all night. The next day, she had a tearful look on her face, so I asked her what was wrong. She said, 'My mother want to apologize to Mr. Abe! She has never apologized to me or Tetsuya before!' This seemed to be the first time she blamed his mother."
According to Yamagami's sister, her mother only mumbled "I'm sorry" to her daughter over the phone in a hoarse voice.
"To Tetsuya and his sister, she is a mother to them to no end. That's because she's a human being. That's our destiny."
The uncle, who said, "Blood is thicker than water," was trying his best to be close to Yamagami and the other three children as if they were his own children.
To be continued to the second part...
