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Suspicious package halts Japan Court proceedings for Abe killing

A vehicle from the Nara Prefectural Police, believed to be carrying a suspicious object, is pictured after it was delivered to the Nara District Court during the pre-trial hearing for Tetsuya Yamagami, the man accused of killing Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe, in Nara on June 12, 2023. The pre-trial hearing for Yamagami was cancelled on June 12 after the suspicious object, reportedly a roughly square-shaped cardboard box about  13 inches long and sealed with adhesive tape, was delivered to the court, setting off a metal detector, local media said.   (STR/JIJI Press/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS)
By Isabel Reynolds Bloomberg News

Proceedings on the fatal shooting case of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had to be temporarily called off after a suspicious item was delivered to the Nara District Court premises, public broadcaster NHK said, citing a source related to the investigation.

The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, had been due in court Monday for pretrial consultations when staff and visitors to the building were briefly evacuated as police dealt with a potentially dangerous object delivered earlier that day, the Asahi newspaper reported.

Asahi cited local police as saying the object was a cardboard box sealed with adhesive tape, which set off alarms when it passed through a metal detector. Police removed the object and confirmed the security of the premises before allowing staff to return, it said.

A court official contacted by telephone declined to comment.

The incident comes almost a year after the suspect was seen in video shooting Abe at close range with a homemade gun while the former premier was making a campaign speech in the western prefecture. The shooting horrified Japan, where gun ownership is tightly controlled, and was followed in April by a man throwing what appeared to be a pipe bomb that exploded close to current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as he prepared to make a speech.

The suspect in the attack on Kishida may have nursed a grudge over the fact he was rejected as a candidate for Japan’s upper house because he was too young, Kyodo News reported at the time. Kishida was unharmed and continued his program of speeches after the explosion.

Yamagami told police he was motivated by a grudge against Abe for his links to a fringe religion that he blamed for bankrupting his family by taking excessive donations from his mother. The incident prompted the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party to attempt to distance itself from the conservative religious group, formerly known as the Unification Church, and the fallout hit support for Kishida’s government.

The latest incident comes amid simmering speculation that Kishida may call a general election in the coming weeks. While he needn’t hold the vote until 2025, renewing his mandate now would help him keep control of his party as he heads into a tough debate over how to pay for increased spending on defense and policies to halt a fall in the birthrate.