Tokyo, 15 July, /AJMEDIA/
The mother of the man who fatally shot former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe donated about 100 million yen ($720,000) to the Unification Church, the man’s uncle said Friday.
The assailant, Tetsuya Yamagami, has told investigators he believed Abe was linked to the church and he harbored a grudge against it because his family’s finances were ruined due to the donations made by his mother.
Yamagami’s mother joined the church around 1991 following his father’s suicide in 1984, the uncle told reporters.
The church has claimed that it returned 50 million yen to her, while adding there were no records of the amounts of the donations she made to the organization.
Yamagami’s family was thrown into poverty because of the church, the uncle said.
