NARA: Japanese public prosecutors Monday began the process of a psychiatric examination of the man accused of fatally shooting former Prime Minister ABE Shinzo to see whether he can bear criminal liability.

The Nara District Public Prosecutors Office will examine the mental state of Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, around the time of the July 8 attack and other details, including his background and upbringing. He had been sent to the prosecutors on murder allegations.

The prosecutors will decide whether to indict him based on the results of the examination, which will continue until Nov. 29.

On Monday, Yamagami left a police station in the western city of Nara around 10:15 a.m. (1:15 a.m. GMT) on a Nara prefectural police vehicle. He arrived at the Osaka Detention House in the nearby city of Osaka one hour later.

The prosecutors see the need for a mental examination of the suspect as his capacity to take criminal responsibility may become a key issue at trial, informed sources said.

Abe was attacked during a stump speech in Nara just before the July 10 election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament.

According to the Nara prefectural police, Yamagami admitted to the shooting immediately after his arrest, responding to questioning calmly.

He said he had a grudge against the religious group known as the Unification Church, of which his mother is a member, and that he targeted Abe as he had thought that the former prime minister had ties with the group, according to the police.

Meanwhile, Yamagami described Abe as “not the real enemy” in a letter sent to a blogger critical of the religious group the day before the shooting.

“Abe is just one of the sympathizers of the Unification Church who are the most influential in the real world,” he wrote in the letter.

JIJI Press