THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
July 13, 2022 at 16:03 JST
The handmade gun confiscated at the scene of the fatal shooting of Shinzo Abe on July 8 (Mami Ueda)
NARA--The suspected killer of Shinzo Abe said he carried a gun to an election campaign event in Okayama featuring the former prime minister the day before the fatal shooting here, investigative sources said.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, traveled to the venue in Okayama on July 7 by Shinkansen bullet train and returned to Nara where he lives later that day, Nara prefectural police said.
Over the course of that journey, security camera footage captured images of a man believed to be Yamagami with a shoulder bag similar to the one the suspect was carrying when Abe was shot, the sources said.
Although the security cameras did not record images of a gun, Yamagami told police he brought a weapon with him to Okayama.
On the afternoon of July 7, a man believed to be Yamagami was caught on camera at Shin-Omiya Station on the Kintetsu Line near his home in Nara, and later at JR Shin-Osaka Station, a stop on the bullet train line heading to Okayama.
Abe delivered a speech for an Upper House election candidate in a hall in Okayama on the evening of July 7. A security camera at a convenience store near the venue captured images of the man believed to be Yamagami.
Investigators have not confirmed if Yamagami actually entered the hall.
They suspect he abandoned his plan to attack Abe in Okayama and waited for an opportunity the next day in Nara, where Abe gave a campaign speech outdoors.
Yamagami also said that in the early hours of July 7, before he headed to Okayama, he test-fired a gun at a Unification Church building in Nara’s Sanjo-oji district, the sources said.
Six holes were found in an area near a first-floor door, as well as metallic pieces believed to be fragments from the projectiles fired.
Police suspect Yamagami tested the same gun that he used to kill Abe in the July 8 shooting.
The handmade gun seized at the site was about 40 centimeters long and 20 cm high. It had two barrels taped together and appeared designed to fire six projectiles at a time, the sources said.
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