NARA, Japan –
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed on Friday on a street in western Japan by a gunman who opened fire on him from behind while he was delivering a campaign speech, an attack that stunned the nation, which has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.
Abe, 67, who was Japan’s longest-serving leader when he resigned in 2020, collapsed bleeding and was airlifted to a nearby hospital in Nara, although he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead after massive blood transfusions, officials said.
The head of Nara Medical University’s emergency department, Hidetada Fukushima, said Abe suffered major heart damage, along with two neck wounds that damaged an artery. He never regained his vital signs, Fukushima said.
Police at the scene of the shooting in Nara arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a former member of the Japanese navy, on suspicion of murder. Police said he used what appeared to be a homemade gun – about 15 inches (40 centimeters) long – and they confiscated similar weapons and his personal computer when they raided his nearby studio apartment.
Police said Yamagami answered questions calmly and admitted to attacking Abe, telling investigators he planned to kill him because he believed rumors about the former leader’s connection to a certain organization that police did not identified.
Dramatic video from NHK showed Abe standing and giving a speech outside a train station in Nara ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election. As he raised his fist to say something, two shots rang out and he collapsed clutching his chest, his shirt stained with blood, as guards ran towards him. The guards then jumped on the gunman, who was face down on the pavement.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet ministers hurriedly returned to Tokyo from campaign events around the country after the shooting, which he called “vile and barbaric.” He vowed that the election, which elects members of Japan’s lower house of parliament, would go ahead as planned.
“I use the harshest words to condemn (the act),” Kishida said, struggling to control his emotions. He said the government planned to review the security situation, but added that Abe had the highest level of protection.
Although out of office, Abe still wielded great influence in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and headed its largest Seiwakai faction.
Opposition leaders condemned the attack as a challenge to Japanese democracy. In Tokyo, people stopped on the street to pick up extra editions of newspapers or watch television coverage of the shooting. Bouquets for Abe were placed near the scene of the murder.
When he resigned as prime minister, Abe said he had a relapse of the ulcerative colitis he had had since his teenage years.
He told reporters at the time that it was difficult to leave many of his goals unfinished, particularly his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, the territorial dispute with Russia and the revision of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution.
That last goal made him a controversial figure. His ultra-nationalism angered Korea and China, and his drive to create what he saw as a more normal defensive posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of rewriting the officially US-drafted pacifist constitution due to weak public support.
Loyalists said his legacy was a stronger U.S.-Japan relationship aimed at bolstering 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 primed 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.
World leaders paid tribute to Abe, with many expressing shock and grief. US President Joe Biden praised him for saying that his “vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region will endure. Above all, he cared deeply for the Japanese people and devoted his life to their service.”
Biden, who has been dealing with a summer of mass shootings in the US, said that “gun violence always leaves a deep scar on the communities that are affected by it.”
Japan is particularly known for its strict gun laws. With a population of 125 million, there were only 10 gun-related crimes last year, resulting in one death and four injuries, according to police. Eight of those cases were gang-related. There were no gun incidents, injuries or deaths in Tokyo that year, although 61 guns were confiscated.
Abe was proud of his work to strengthen Japan’s security alliance with the US and of organizing 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 promising that the Fukushima disaster was “under control” when it was not.
Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, at the age of 52, but his overly nationalistic first term ended abruptly a year later, also due to ill health.
The end of Abe’s scandal-ridden first stint 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 revive the nation and lift its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his “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 capabilities and its security alliance with the United States. He also strengthened patriotic education in schools and raised Japan’s international standing.
Yamaguchi and Klug reported from Tokyo.
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