Nara, Japan - A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced the man who assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe to life in prison.

Tetsuya Yamagami had admitted shooting Japan's longest-serving post-war prime minister with a homemade firearm during an election campaign speech in July 2022.

The 45-year-old was overpowered and arrested in front of cameras after the killing.

Yamagami told investigators that he acted out of hatred for the controversial Unification Church, which was founded in South Korea in 1954 by staunch anti-communist Sun Myung Moon, and supported in Japan by Abe's grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.

In a plea for leniency, his defense team stressed his upbringing had been mired in "religious abuse" stemming from his mother's extreme faith in the church.

In despair after the suicide of her husband – and with her other son gravely ill – Yamagami's mother poured all her assets into the Church to "salvage" her family, defense lawyers said, adding that her donations eventually snowballed to the equivalent of about $1 million.

He was forced to give up pursuing higher education and in 2005, he attempted to take his own life before his brother died by suicide.

Investigations after Abe's murder led to cascading revelations about close ties between the Church and many conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, prompting four ministers to resign.

While the judge acknowledged the role played by these personal tragedies, he insisted "each criminal action (Yamagami) took was based on nothing but his own decision-making, the process of which deserves strong condemnation."