THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
July 20, 2022 at 15:39 JST
A tweet posted on Oct. 14, 2019, on a Twitter account believed to belong to Tetsuya Yamagami says: “The only thing I hate is the Unification Church. I have no concern about what will happen to the Abe administration as a result.” (Yusuke Morishita)
The Twitter account of the man suspected of assassinating former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that drew about 45,000 followers after it became publicized has been suspended.
The account that belongs to Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, became unavailable for viewing beginning in the early morning of July 19.
Twitter Inc. says on its website it may suspend accounts that violate the company’s rules, such as committing hateful conduct and threatening and glorifying violence, and it may remove accounts maintained by individual perpetrators of violent attacks.
A representative of the company said Yamagami’s account has violated the company’s policy but declined to comment on “the details of what led to the suspension of the account.”
When a reporter asked whether police requested Twitter to suspend Yamagami’s account directly or otherwise, a Nara prefectural police representative declined to comment.
Yamagami’s account first had a tweet in October 2019.
Until the end of June 30 this year, the account had 1,363 tweets, in which Yamagami expressed love and hate toward his family, a grudge against the Unification Church, comments on Abe, and other matters.
Yamagami mailed a letter to a man in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, who is a writer, shortly before the July 8 Abe assassination.
He wrote in the letter about his anger toward the religious group and hinted about a plan to kill Abe.
He also included his Twitter account in the letter. Police seized the letter on July 17.
Police have found a document identical to the mailed letter in a computer taken from Yamagami’s home. It was created on the morning of July 6 and last saved in the evening that day.
Yamagami’s Twitter account had no followers as of the morning of July 17.
But after it was widely reported, the number of followers jumped to about 45,000 as of 8 p.m. on July 18.
Many liked and retweeted Yamagami’s past tweets.
(This article was written by Daisuke Yajima and Yuki Hanano.)
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