Abe, 67, was shot in the back minutes after he began his speech in Nara. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment, but he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead despite emergency treatment that included massive blood transfusions, hospital officials said. Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of an attack that shocked many in Japan, which is one of the safest countries in the world and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere. With a population of 125 million, the country had only 10 gun-related crimes last year, resulting in one death and four injuries, according to police. Eight of those cases were gang-related. Tokyo had no gun incidents, injuries or deaths that year, although 61 guns were confiscated. “Japan is one of the most peaceful, non-violent societies on the planet,” Ian Burney, Canada’s ambassador to Japan from 2016 to 2021, told CBC News. “Murder of any kind is rare, to say nothing of political murders of this kind.” Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, falls to the ground in Nara, western Japan on Friday. Abe was suffering from heart failure after he was apparently shot during a campaign speech on Friday in western Japan, public broadcaster NHK reported. (Kyodo News/The Associated Press) Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his ministers rushed back to Tokyo from campaign events around the country after the shooting, which he described as “senseless and barbaric.” The head of Nara Medical University’s emergency department, Hidetada Fukushima, said Abe suffered severe damage to his heart in addition to two neck wounds that damaged an artery, causing extensive bleeding. He was in cardiac and pulmonary arrest when he arrived at the hospital and never regained his vital signs, Fukushima said. Abe was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down in 2020. Public broadcaster NHK aired dramatic video of Abe delivering a speech outside a train station in the western city of Nara. He is standing, dressed in a navy blue suit, raising his fist, when two shots ring out. The video then shows Abe collapsing in the street, with security guards running towards him. He holds his chest, his shirt stained with blood. The next moment, the security guards jump over a man in a gray shirt who is lying face down on the pavement. A double-barreled device that appeared to be a handgun is seen on the ground. A man believed to be a suspect in the shooting is detained by police at Yamato Saidaiji Station in Nara, Japan, on Friday. (Nara Shimbun/Kyodo News via AP) Nara Prefectural Police confirmed the arrest of Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, on suspicion of attempted murder. NHK reported that the suspect served in the Naval Self-Defense Force for three years in the 2000s. Police said the suspect used a gun that was apparently homemade – about 40cm long – and they seized similar weapons and his personal computer when they raided his one-room apartment. Police said Yamagami answered questions calmly and had admitted attacking Abe, telling investigators he had planned to kill him because he believed rumors linking the former leader to a specific organization that police did not specify. A woman cries at the site where Abe was shot near Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara, western Japan. (Issei/Kato) Other videos from the scene showed campaign operatives surrounding Abe. The former leader remained highly influential in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and headed its largest faction, the Seiwakai. Elections for Japan’s Upper House, the least powerful chamber of its parliament, are on Sunday. “I use the harshest words to condemn [the act]Kishida said as he struggled to control his emotions. He said the government planned to review the security situation, but added that Abe had the highest level of protection. Opposition leaders condemned the attack as a challenge to Japan’s democracy. In Tokyo, people stopped on the street to pick up extra editions of newspapers or watch television coverage of the shooting.
He tried to rewrite the Constitution
When he stepped down as prime minister, Abe said he had a relapse of the ulcerative colitis he had had since he was a teenager. He told reporters at the time that it was “mean” to leave many of his goals unfinished. He talked about his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia and a revision of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution. That last goal was a big reason he was such a divisive figure. PHOTOS | Abe leaves a divided legacy: His ultra-nationalism angered Korea and China, and his push to create what he saw as a more normal defense posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the US-drafted pacifist constitution due to poor public support. Loyalists said his legacy was a stronger US-Japan relationship intended to bolster Japan’s defense capability. But Abe has made enemies by pushing his defense goals and other contentious issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition. Abe was a blue-blooded politician groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. His political rhetoric often focused on making Japan a “normal” and “beautiful” nation with a stronger military and a greater role in international affairs. WATCHES | Abe was still active in public life:
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been assassinated
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died after being shot during a campaign speech in western Japan, hospital officials said. It was 67. Many foreign officials expressed shock at the shootings. Abe said he was proud to work while leading a stronger Japan-US security alliance and made the first visit by a sitting US president to the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima. He also helped Tokyo win the right to host the 2020 Olympics by pledging that a disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “under control” when it was not. Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, aged 52, but his ultra-nationalist first term ended abruptly a year later, also due to ill health. WATCHES | Trudeau reacts to Abe’s assassination:
Trudeau reacts to the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his condolences to the family and loved ones of the former Japanese prime minister following news of his murder. The scandal-ridden end of Abe’s first term as prime minister marked the beginning of six years of annual leadership turnover, remembered as an era of “revolving door” politics that lacked stability and long-term policies. When he returned to office in 2012, Abe promised to revitalize the nation and pull its economy out of deflationary recession with the “Abenomics” formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms. He won six national elections and built a firm grip on power, strengthening Japan’s defense role and capability and its security alliance with the US. It also strengthened patriotic education in schools and raised Japan’s international profile.
