NARA, Japan –
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed on a street in western Japan on Friday by a gunman who shot him in the back while he was making a campaign speech, an attack that stunned the nation that has some of the strictest weapons in the world.
Abe, 67, who was Japan’s longest-serving leader when he stepped down in 2020, collapsed bleeding and was airlifted to a nearby hospital in Nara, though he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead after receiving massive blood transfusions, authorities said.
Nara Medical University’s emergency department chief Hidetada Fukushima said Abe suffered serious heart damage, along with two neck injuries that damaged an artery. He never recovered vital signs from him, Fukushima said.
Nara prefectural police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the attack and identified him as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a former member of the Japanese navy. Broadcaster NHK reported that he said that he wanted to kill Abe because he had grievances about him that were not related to politics.
A dramatic video from NHK showed Abe standing and giving a speech outside a train station in Nara ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections. As he raised his fist to indicate something, two shots rang out and he collapsed clutching his chest, blood stained his shirt as security guards ran towards him.
The guards jumped on the gunman, who was face down on the pavement. A double-barreled device that appeared to be a handmade weapon was seen on the ground.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet ministers rushed back to Tokyo from campaign events across the country after the shooting, which he called “cowardly and barbaric.” He promised that the election, which selects members of Japan’s less powerful upper house of parliament, would go ahead as planned.
“I use the harshest words to condemn (the act),” Kishida said, struggling to control his emotions. He said the government planned to review the security situation, but added that Abe had the most protection.
Even though he was out of office, Abe was still highly influential in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, heading its largest faction, the Seiwakai.
Opposition leaders condemned the attack as a challenge to Japan’s democracy. In Tokyo, people stopped on the street to buy extra editions of newspapers or watch television coverage of the shooting.
When he resigned as prime minister, Abe said he had a recurrence of the ulcerative colitis he had had since he was a teenager.
He told reporters at the time that it was “heartbreaking” to leave so many of his goals unfinished. He spoke of his failure to solve the problem of Japanese kidnapped years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia, and a revision of Japan’s renouncing war constitution.
That last goal made him a divisive figure. His ultra-nationalism angered Korea and China, and his drive to create what he saw as a more normal defense posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the US-drafted anti-war constitution due to poor public support.
Loyalists said his legacy was a stronger US-Japan relationship that was meant to bolster Japan’s defense capabilities. But Abe made enemies by forcing defense targets on himself and other contentious issues in parliament, despite strong public opposition.
Abe 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 larger role in international affairs.
Many foreign officials expressed shock at the shooting.
Abe was proud of his work to strengthen Japan’s security alliance with the US and of leading the first visit by a sitting US president to the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima. He also helped Tokyo win the right to host the 2020 Olympics by promising that a disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “under control” when it wasn’t.
Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, at 52, but his first overly nationalistic stint ended abruptly a year later, also because of his health.
The end of Abe’s scandal-ridden first term as prime minister was the start of six years of annual leadership change, 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 reinvigorate the nation and bring 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 strong grip on power, bolstering Japan’s defense role and capabilities and its security alliance with the US. He also stepped up patriotic education in schools and raised Japan’s international profile.