TOKYO – Shinzo Abe, Japan’s most influential former prime minister, stumbled on behalf of a junior politician in his party near the train station in Japan’s ancient capital Nara on Friday morning as he collapsed, bleeding, in the street. Doctors said he was shot in the neck by a gunman who later admitted he had come to kill him.
Less than six hours later, Mr. Abe, the longest-serving leader in Japanese history, died at the age of 67.
Until the assassination at the campaign stopped on Friday, the Japanese public and media had largely ignored the parliamentary elections scheduled for Sunday, when Mr. expect to win.
Now the party will have to move forward in the polls without the man who has shaped its agenda for the past decade and has the power to anoint future leaders even after he leaves. prime minister’s office.
Fumio Kishida, the current prime minister, who hastily returned to Tokyo from campaigning in northern Japan upon learning of the news, called the assassination “an act of cowardly barbarism” in remarks to reporters. reporters after doctors from Nara Medical University Hospital announced Mr. Abe’s death. Proclaiming to pass with “a free and fair election that is the foundation of democracy” on Sunday, Mr Kishida said “to lose a stalwart politician who has left behind great achievements in many areas are really regrettable.”
The shooting comes at a critical time for Japan, as it tries to cement a stronger leadership position in the region in the face of growing threats from China’s neighbors. and Korea. And with images of extreme violence from Ukraine and the United States projected onto screens in Japan, the public can’t help but worry about the possibility that a country they consider safe may not be a safe country.
Immediately after the shooting at 11:30 a.m. Friday, police chased and arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, at the scene. He has been charged with murder. Police officials said he used a “homemade” gun and confessed that he intended to kill Mr. Abe because he believed the former prime minister had some connection to a group against Mr. Yamagami.
At a press conference on Friday night, police officials from the Nara prefectural office said Mr. Yamagami had built a double-barreled gun, about 16 inches long and 7 inches wide, and that police found several weapons. similar atmosphere in his apartment near this site. .
Authorities have not said what charges he will face or what punishment they will seek. Japan is one of the few highly developed countries with the death penalty; six people have been executed by hanging in the past three years. The law allows the death penalty for murder, but it rarely applies to a single murder.
The shock wave reverberated throughout Japan’s political establishment and among a general public unaccustomed to such violent crime, especially in a country with a number of The strictest gun laws in the world.
“I was completely shocked,” said Ayane Kubota, 37, who was returning home from work in Tokyo and scrolled through Twitter for news updates on Friday night. “This is really unlike Japanese. You never hear about gun violence here. On TV in the US, you hear about it all the time, but not here. “
Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was attacked in an assassination attempt in 1960 shortly after he resigned as prime minister. He was stabbed six times in the thigh by a member of a small supranational group, but unlike his nephew, survived.
On Friday in Nara, where a makeshift memorial for Mr. Abe was set up throughout the afternoon at the site of the shooting, 18-year-old Hijiri Mizokawa joined her father and grandmother in placing flowers for the leader. dead in a pile of watermelons, candies, and juice bottles. “It’s scary,” said Ms. Mizokawa. “I still can’t believe that this kind of terrorism can happen in Japan.”
From around the world, condolences to Mr. Abe, who enjoyed strong ties with world leaders during his nearly eight-year tenure. As a diplomat by profession, he has worked closely with allies but also reached out to countries like Russia with which Japan has a difficult relationship. As the United States wavered in its engagement with Asia, Abe chose Japan as a regional leader advocating free trade and the rule of law against an increasingly aggressive China.
At home, Mr. Abe appreciates his legacy of trying to turn Japan into a “normal” country that can defend itself and even engage in combat after more than 70 years of imposed pacifism. in the constitution written by the postwar American occupiers. In Sunday’s election, the Liberal Democrats are running on a platform that includes Mr. Abe’s proposal Amend the constitution to explicitly acknowledge the existence of the country’s self-defense force.
According to the Ministry of National Defense, a man with the suspect’s name served in Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years from 2002 to 2005.
Cell phone videos taken by bystanders at the campaign event Friday morning showed a man in a gray T-shirt and khaki pants quietly standing behind Mr Abe as he began to speak.
Standing on top of a tank leaning against a traffic barrier on a street near a train station in Nara, Mr Abe shook hands and announced into the microphone while praising 43-year-old Kei Sato, who is running for re-election to the Senate. Congressional.
Suddenly, one heard two loud bangs like the sound of a tire. Masao Nakanishi, 80, who was standing in front of Mr. Abe, said he saw the former prime minister fall to the street. Mobile phone videos shown on public broadcaster NHK showed the man in a gray shirt and khaki pants, later identified as Mr. Yamagami, aiming at Mr. Abe and opening fire, smoke billowing out. from his gun. Police said Mr Abe looked behind him after the first shot and was then hit by a second explosion.
Mr. Nakanishi said a campaign official was shouting for help, begging medical professionals and begging for oxygen masks or defibrillators.
Three men wearing suits, believed to be part of Mr. Abe’s security detail, pinned Mr. Yamagami to the ground. He threw away what appeared in the video and photos to become a rudimentary homemade gun.
Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene and when emergency workers performed CPR, Mr Abe was covered with a large blue tarp. The paramedics put him on a stretcher, and under a tarp, put him on a medical evacuation helicopter that took him to Nara Medical University Hospital, where he landed, had cardiopulmonary arrest, at 12:20 pm.
Doctors had been working all afternoon to stabilize him, but Hidetada Fukushima, professor in charge of emergency medicine at the hospital, said despite a blood transfusion and efforts to prevent major bleeding heart but Mr. Abe passed away shortly after 5pm. His wife, Akie Abe, went to the hospital.
Political leaders from all over paid their respects. Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo who sometimes gets in trouble with Mr. Abe, shed tears as she described her shock and “great anger”.
Kiyomi Tsujimoto, a veteran of the Constitutional Democratic Party and incumbent candidate for Sunday’s Senate election, wrote on Twitter that she often argues with Mr. Abe. “We fought each other by our own beliefs many times,” she Written. “That’s why I certainly can’t allow violence to kill this speech.”
Mr. Abe can be a divisive figure in the public because of his right-wing views on constitutional reform, the right of women to keep their names after marriage and historical revisionism about Japan’s wartime atrocities. On social media, he was attacked by some commenters even as he lay dying in the hospital.
But his political opponents were quick to defend him. Renho Saito, a former leader of an opposition party, canceled his campaign schedule on Friday and urged people to stop making “heartless comments” on social media.
“I do not want to connect with ideological beliefs, but with a desire to defend democracy, and ensure that these insults are not allowed to continue,” Saito wrote on Twitter.
In Nara in the early hours of Friday night, police officers cordoned off the scene of the shooting as officers continued to collect debris from the streets and in the bushes lining the sidewalks. Behind the yellow police tape, watermarks could be seen on the street, covering the bloodstains from the morning.
Motoko Rich, Makiko Inoue and Hikari Hida reported from Tokyo, and Hisako Ueno from Nara, Japan.
