Tokyo: The homemade gun used by Tetsuya Yamagami, who shot former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday, was designed to fire six bullets at a time, the NHK broadcaster reported on Sunday, citing the suspect’s interrogation materials.
On Sunday morning, Yamagami was sent to the prosecution. He is facing murder charges.
Yamagami said that his improvised firearm was made of two metal pipes, held together by duct tape, and a capsule with six bullets, which was inserted into each barrel, according to the report.
“A capsule containing six bullets was placed in a metal pipe with gunpowder. It was a mechanism that could fire six shots at a time,” Yamagami was quoted as saying by the NHK.
Over the course of the interrogation, he admitted that he had chosen to make a gun with two barrels for fear the weapon would not work. Yamagami claimed to have made other firearms with three, five and six pipes.
The NHK also reported that bullet holes had been found on the car parked 20 meters from the scene of the attack.
Abe was attacked on Friday morning in the Japanese city of Nara during his campaign speech. Yamagami, 41, approached the politician from behind and fired two shots from a distance of about 10 meters (33 feet). Police said Abe was conscious immediately after being wounded, but then, during transportation, his condition became critical “with cardiac and pulmonary arrest.”
Later in the day, Nara Medical University hospital pronounced him dead. Abe was 67.
