Photo/Illutration Police officers transfer Tetsuya Yamagami from the Nara Nishi Police Station to the prosecutors office. (Shiro Nishihata)

The suspect in the slaying of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination expected to take several months to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial.

According to investigative sources, the Nara District Court on July 22 approved a request from the Nara District Public Prosecutors Office to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of Tetsuya Yamagami, 41. The evaluation is expected to take until late November.

Yamagami will be transferred to a hospital for the evaluation, which will also look into his developmental background. Prosecutors will use the results of the exam to determine if Yamagami is mentally competent to be indicted.

Yamagami was arrested July 8 moments after he was seen firing a second fatal shot while Abe was giving a campaign speech in Nara.

He told police he held a grudge against the Unification Church, known formally as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, citing difficulties he faced growing up due to large donations made to the church by his mother.

He also said he targeted Abe because he thought the former prime minister had ties to the Unification Church.

But in a letter Yamagami sent before the incident to a freelance writer who has been critical of the Unification Church, he wrote that Abe was not his primary enemy.

Police also learned that Yamagami went into debt to make guns at home, one of which he used to gun down Abe, and that he did not hold down a regular job.

He told police he feared he would die in July due to his lack of money and wanted to make sure Abe was dead before that happened.

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