JAPAN: Police arrested a 41-year-old local man who was a former member of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in connection with the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, NHK reported, citing several Government officials.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister and a figure of enduring influence, was shot during a campaign event Friday, shocking a nation where political violence and guns are rare.
Two videos broadcast by NHK showed what appeared to be smoke coming from behind Abe as he spoke and a man being tackled by security personnel on the street soon afterward. Abe was rushed to a hospital immediately and may have gone into cardiac arrest, Kyodo News said, citing local firefighters.
Abe shot from about three metres (10 feet) behind while campaigning for Sunday’s Upper House election in the western city of Nara.
It’s unclear if the shooting will impact the timing of the election, which the LDP was expected to win easily. Early voting had already started.
“This comes as a grave shock,” Hiromichi Watanabe, a senior LDP member, said at the ruling party’s headquarters. “I can’t believe something like this would happen in Japan.”
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister, stepped down in August 2020 to undergo treatment for a chronic illness. Japan is a country with some of the strictest gun laws among leading economies and shootings are rare.
The shooting of Shinzo Abe is only the fifth involving a political leader of that country since 1990, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. The most recent was 15 years ago – Nagasaki mayor Ito Itcho was shot dead in 2007 by a criminal group. – YAHOO NEWS