The mother of Shinzo Abe’s confessed killer donated more than 700,000 euros to the Unification Church.

The mother of the perpetrator of the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Tetsuya Yamagami, had donated to the Unification Church, a religious group of South Korean origin, about 100 million yen (approximately 715,000 euros), a family member has indicated.

The donations included 60 million yen (about 429,000 euros) from Yamagami’s father’s inheritance, as explained by the uncle of the confessed perpetrator of the murder to the Kiodo news agency.

Likewise, the woman would have given to this church the money obtained after the sale of real estate and the family estate. She subsequently continued to donate small amounts until she ran out of money in 2002. “I think she was a very important follower. She was completely subjugated,” she has pointed out.

Yamagami’s mother joined the Unification Church in 1991 following her husband’s suicide in 1984. However, the religious group has claimed that it returned 50 million yen to her and insisted that there is no data on the amounts she donated to the organization.

Yamagami’s uncle has criticized the church’s response and accused it of trying to evade responsibility. He also pointed out that it was precisely because of these donations that the family went bankrupt, which led the perpetrator to drop out of university because he did not have enough money to pay for his studies.

Shortly after his arrest, Yamagami confessed that his first intention was to kill the leader of the group precisely because he had ruined his family, and acknowledged that he had planned the attack and had visited other places where Abe had made speeches during his campaign.

Yamagami himself, who would have ended Abe’s life because his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi “brought the church to Japan,” had attempted suicide in 2005 when he was a member of the Japanese Navy so that his brothers could benefit from his life insurance.

The Unification Church, questioned on previous occasions for its donation system, has claimed that it carried out an internal reform in 2009, when its head admitted problems in complying with current legislation.