Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is feared dead today after being shot in the chest while giving a speech in the south of the country.
Abe, 67, who is Japan’s longest-serving PM having held office twice from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020, was shot around 11.30am local time in the city of Nara – near Osaka – while speaking outside the train station.
Firefighters who rushed to the scene described him as having ‘no vital signs’, while medics said he was ‘in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest’. That phrase commonly used in Japan when someone has died but doctors have not officially pronounced it.
Suspected shooter Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a military veteran, was arrested at the scene on with police also confiscating what appeared to be a homemade firearm.
Witnesses reported hearing two shots while Abe was making a campaign speech ahead of Sunday’s election for the parliament’s upper house. He then collapsed holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood.
It was a stunning development in a country with famously low levels of violent crime and tough gun laws, involving Japan’s best-known politician.
