by Satoshi Sugiyama and Chang-Ran Kim
TOKYO (Reuters) – Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed on Friday while campaigning in the western Japanese city of Nara ahead of senatorial elections.
A man opened fire on the Japanese leader with a homemade weapon as the latter was delivering a speech.
Hit by two bullets in the heart and neck, Shinzo Abe, who was 67, was pronounced dead in hospital five and a half hours later, at 5:03 p.m. (0803 GMT), announced a doctor from the university hospital of Nara at a press conference. He was bleeding profusely and showed no signs of life when he was admitted, said Professor Hidetada Fukushima. Doctors performed multiple blood transfusions without being able to save him.
It is the first assassination of a current or former prime minister in Japan since the 1930s.
Before the announcement of Shinzo Abe’s death, the current Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, had condemned “in the strongest terms” this “absolutely unforgivable act of brutality” against his predecessor.
According to local firefighters, Shinzo Abe was already in cardiorespiratory arrest when he was airlifted to hospital.
Police said they had arrested a 41-year-old man, a former member of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, who is now believed to be unemployed.
Authorities are investigating whether the alleged killer acted alone.
The suspect, believed to be Tetsuya Yamagami according to media reports, told law enforcement that he was angry with a “specific organization”, which Shinzo Abe allegedly belonged to, and that his grudge had nothing to do with it. politics. The police said they were unable to verify whether the organization in question actually existed.
LONGEVITY RECORD
Shinzo Abe was giving a speech near a train station as part of Sunday’s senatorial campaign when two shots rang out around 11:30 a.m. (02:30 GMT). Security guards were seen tackling a man to the ground.
The Kyodo agency published a photo showing the former prime minister lying on the ground on his back, blood on his white shirt, surrounded by several people, one of whom was giving him a heart massage.
Shinzo Abe, 67, served as prime minister for eight years, from 2012 to 2020, a record longevity at the head of Japan, before resigning for health reasons.
Despite his departure, he had remained a central figure within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, controlling one of its main factions.
Fumio Kishida, who was Shinzo Abe’s right-hand man, suspended his campaign ahead of Sunday’s elections. The main political parties in the archipelago condemned the attack.
Tributes to the former prime minister have also poured in from abroad.
“Japan is losing a great Prime Minister, who dedicated his life to his country and worked to bring balance to the world,” said Emmanuel Macron in a message posted on Twitter.
US President Joe Biden said he was “stunned, outraged and deeply saddened” by this news and said he had lost a “friend”, “champion of the alliance” between the United States and Japan.
(Reporting Satoshi Sugiyama in Nara, Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; with Reuters reporters; written by Robert Birsel; French version Camille Raynaud, Laetitia Volga and Myriam Rivet, editing by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)