What drove Yamagami Tetsuya to kill Abe Shinzo?
Japan searches for motives behind the senseless attack
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”
Asia July 23rd 2022
- Soaring inflation is making South-East Asians hungrier and poorer
- Bangladesh loosens its booze laws
- Sri Lanka picks a new president to replace the one that fled
- Imran Khan’s party wins a surprise victory against Pakistan’s government
- Why Indonesia punches below its weight in global affairs
- What drove Yamagami Tetsuya to kill Abe Shinzo?
More from Asia
Can Donald Trump maintain Joe Biden’s network of Asian alliances?
Discipline and creativity will help, but so will China’s actions
What North Korea gains by sending troops to fight for Russia
Resources, technology, experience and a blood-soaked IOU
Is Arkadag the world’s greatest football team?
What could possibly explain the success of a club founded by Turkmenistan’s dictator
After the president’s arrest, what next for South Korea?
Some 3,000 police breached his compound. The country is dangerously divided
India’s Faustian pact with Russia is strengthening
The gamble behind $17bn of fresh deals with the Kremlin on oil and arms
AUKUS enters its fifth year. How is the pact faring?
It has weathered two big political changes. What about Donald Trump’s return?