TOKYO –
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an archconservative and one of the country’s most divisive figures, was shot and critically wounded during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan. He was airlifted to a hospital, but authorities said he was not breathing and his heart had stopped.
Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the shocking attack in a country that is one of the safest in the world and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Abe was in “serious condition” and hoped Abe would survive. He called the attack “vile and barbaric” and added that the crime committed during the election campaign, which is the foundation of democracy, was absolutely unforgivable.
Kishida and his cabinet ministers hastily returned to Tokyo from other campaign events around the country after the shooting. “I pray for former Prime Minister Abe’s survival from the bottom of my heart,” Kishida said at the prime minister’s office after arriving by defense helicopter from Yamagata.
He said Abe is receiving the best medical treatment. Abe, who is 67 and was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down in 2020, was in cardiac and pulmonary arrest as he was airlifted to the hospital, local fire department spokesman Makoto Morimoto said.
Public broadcaster NHK aired dramatic footage of Abe giving a speech outside Nara Central Station. He stands straight, wearing a dark blue suit, fist raised, when a gunshot is heard. The footage then shows Abe collapsing in the street, with several security guards running towards him. He clutches his chest, his shirt is stained with blood.
The next moment, security guards jump on a man in a gray shirt, who is lying face down on the sidewalk. A double-barreled device can be seen on the ground, looking like a hand-made weapon.
Nara Prefectural Police confirmed the arrest of a suspect for the alleged attempted murder and identified him as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41. NHK reported that the suspect served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years in the 2000s.
Other footage from the scene shows campaigners around Abe. The popular former leader is still influential in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and heads its largest Seiwakai faction. Elections for Japan’s upper house, the less powerful house of Japan’s parliament, are on Sunday.
“A barbaric act like this is absolutely unforgivable, no matter what the reasons, and we strongly condemn it,” said Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno.
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper printed extra editions, which were quickly grabbed by people on the street to read about the shooting.
Nara, once the capital of Japan, is just east of Osaka on the country’s main island of Honshu.
Abe cited a chronic health problem when he resigned as prime minister. Abe has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and said the condition is controlled with treatment.
He told reporters at the time that it was a “contraction” 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 constitution, which renounces war.
That last goal was a big reason why he was such a controversial figure.
His ultra-nationalism angered the Koreas 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 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 a greater role in international affairs.
Many foreign officials expressed shock at the shooting.
Our thoughts, our prayers are with him, with his family, with the people of Japan,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said while attending the Group of 20 foreign ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
“Abe-san was an outstanding leader of Japan and a staunch ally of the United States. The US government and the American people pray for the well-being of Abe-san, his family and the people of Japan,” Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel wrote on Twitter.
Former President Donald Trump said it was “absolutely devastating news” that Abe had been shot and wounded. He said on his social media app that Abe “was a true friend of mine and, much more importantly, of America. This is a huge blow to the wonderful people of Japan who loved and admired him so much. We are all praying for Shinzo and his beautiful family!”
Abe said he was proud to have worked as a leader for a stronger Japan-US security alliance and led the first visit by a sitting US president to the 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, aged 52, but his highly nationalistic first term came to an abrupt end 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.
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