Shinzo Abe’s assassin charged with murder

Prosecutors in Japan on Friday formally charged former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassin with murder. Law enforcement personnel detained and arrested Tetsuya Yamagami mere seconds after he shot the former prime minister with a homemade firearm. Tetsuya has undergone a nearly six-month mental and psychological evaluation that prosecutors said showed he was fit to stand trial.

How is this trial expected to go? Tetsuya has already confessed to killing Abe. One of Tetsuya’s lawyers, Masaaki Furukawa, said his client must accept responsibility for the killing and allow his lawyers to work at reducing his sentence. Japan does allow the death penalty for murder, but it is usually only applied in cases of multiple homicides. There is a possibility Tetsuya could obtain life in prison after his conviction.

Dig deeper: Listen to my report on The World and Everything in It podcast about the death of Shinzo Abe and what it meant for the Japanese people and the world.