Former Japan PM Shinzo Abe dies after being shot at campaign speech

Nara/Tokyo, July 8

Japan’s NHK television says former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died after being shot during a campaign speech.

Abe was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech on Friday at Nara in western Japan. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital.

The 67-year-old Abe was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down for health reasons in 2020.

Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the attack, which shocked people in a country known as one of the world’s safest.

Earlier, local fire department official Makoto Morimoto said Abe was in cardio and pulmonary arrest after being shot and was taken to a prefectural hospital.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that police arrested an alleged male attacker at the scene.

“A barbaric act like this is absolutely unforgivable, no matter what the reasons are, and we condemn it strongly,” Matsuno said.

NHK public broadcaster aired footage showing Abe collapsed on the street, with several security guards running towards him, He was reportedly shot minutes after he started talking outside of a main train station in western Nara.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who belongs to the same political party as Abe, is on his way to Tokyo on a helicopter from his own campaign destination of Yamagata, in northern Japan. Matsuno said all cabinet ministers are to return to Tokyo from their campaign trips.

In another footage, campaign officials were surrounding him to treat the popular former leader who is still influential in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and heads its largest faction Seiwakai. Elections for Japan’s upper house, the less powerful chamber of its parliament, are scheduled for Sunday.

Abe was giving a speech when people heard gunshots. He was holding his chest when he collapsed, his shirt smeared with blood, but was able to speak before he fell unconscious.

The attack was a shock in a country that’s one of the world’s safest and with some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.

Abe stepped down in 2020 because he said a chronic health problem had resurfaced. Abe has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the condition was controlled with treatment.

He told reporters at the time that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished. He spoke of 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.

His ultra-nationalism riled the Koreas and China, and his push to normalise Japan’s defence posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the US-drafted pacifist constitution because of poor public support.

Supporters of Abe said his legacy was a stronger US-Japan relationship that was meant to bolster Japan’s defence capability. But Abe made enemies too by forcing his defence goals and other contentious issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition.

Abe is a political blue blood who was 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 bigger role in international affairs.