Abe, 67, was pronounced dead by doctors at Nara Medical University Hospital at 5:03 p.m. local time on Friday, just over five hours after he was shot while delivering a campaign speech to a small crowd on a street. At the time of the shooting, Abe was speaking in support of ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidates ahead of Sunday’s upper house election, which is still scheduled to be held. Despite stepping down as Japan’s prime minister in 2020 for health reasons, Abe remained a prominent figure in the country’s political landscape and continued to campaign for the LDP. Abe arrived at the hospital in cardiac arrest, and despite a team of medical personnel struggling to revive him, the former prime minister died of excessive bleeding caused by gunshot wounds to his neck and heart, doctors said. Outside Abe’s Tokyo residence on Saturday, hundreds of people lined the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the car carrying his body. People of all ages told CNN they were in disbelief and saddened by Abe’s death. “I didn’t expect something like this to happen to someone who has been the leader of Japan for so long — it’s usually so safe here and we don’t have gun crime,” said Takashi Uchida, 57. Student Ryogo Uto, 18, said Abe’s death was “so sudden” that it “still hasn’t sunk in”. “Abe was a respected leader who did many things for Japan while he was in power,” he said. Lines of tearful mourners also gathered to lay flowers and kneel at a makeshift memorial outside Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara, near where Abe was assassinated.
The suspect admits to shooting
Police have launched a homicide investigation into the killing, but little is known about the suspect who was arrested at the scene of Friday’s fatal shooting. Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, admitted to shooting Abe with an improvised weapon, Nara Nishi police said during a press conference on Friday. Yamagami, who is unemployed, told investigators he harbored hatred for a particular group he believed Abe was associated with. Police did not name the group. Images from the scene showed what appeared to be a gun with two cylindrical metal barrels wrapped in black tape. Police said the weapon recovered from the shooting is 40cm long and 20cm wide. Authorities later seized several similar handgun-like artifacts from the suspect’s apartment. Police said the suspect made the weapons himself using parts he bought online. During the search of the residence, police found several types of guns with iron pipes wrapped in duct tape, NHK reported — the guns had three, five and six such pipes as barrels. The suspect reportedly put bullets in the pipes, police said. They believe the suspect used the most powerful improvised weapon in the killing, NHK added. Japan’s National Police Agency said it would review security arrangements put in place before Friday’s shooting, according to NHK. Security was handled by the Nara Prefectural Police, who put together a security plan for the former prime minister while he was in the city. The agency said several dozen officers and security personnel from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police were on duty and were reportedly watching Abe from all sides during his speech, NHK reported.
Japan’s ‘JFK moment’
Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister who defined the country’s politics for a generation. He will be remembered for boosting defense spending, promoting the most dramatic change in Japanese military policy in 70 years, and his grand experiment designed to rouse Japan’s economy from decades of stagnation, known as “Abenomics.” Tomohiko Taniguchi, a former special adviser to Abe, said the former prime minister was “one of Japan’s most transformative leaders” and described his assassination as equivalent to that of US President John F. Kennedy. “I think it will be on par with the day JFK was assassinated… It was a day of sadness, grief, disbelief and for me, tremendous anger. People are having a very hard time digesting the reality,” Taniguchi said on Friday. US President Joe Biden called Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday “to express his anger, sadness and deepest condolences” over Abe’s “tragic and violent shooting death,” the White House said. CNN’s Junko Ogura, Pierre Meilhan, Rhea Mogul and Jake Kwon contributed to the report.
