Shinzo Abe, a former Prime Minister of Japan, has been shot and killed. The incident occurred in the city of Nara in the south of Japan.
“Former prime minister Abe was shot at around 11:30 am in Nara. One man, believed to be the shooter, has been taken into custody.,” chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters.
According to police sources cited by national broadcaster NHK, a man in his 40s was detained for attempted murder and a weapon was seized from him.
According to NHK and the Kyodo news agency, the former leader was giving a stump speech at a gathering before Sunday’s upper house elections when what appeared to be gunshots were heard.
“He was giving a speech and a man came from behind,” a young woman at the scene told NHK.
“The first shot sounded like a toy. He didn’t fall and there was a large bang. The second shot was more visible, you could see the spark and smoke,” she added.
“After the second shot, people surrounded him and gave him cardiac massage.”
According to a source from his governing Liberal Democratic Party, Abe, 67, collapsed and was bleeding from the neck, as reported by the Jiji news agency.
According to a number of media sites, he seems to have been shot from behind, with what appears to have been a homemade weapon.
A task force, according to the administration, was established as a result of the incident.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was in power from 2006 to 2020 until being forced to resign due to the incapacitating intestinal ailment, ulcerative colitis.
Japan has some of the strictest gun control regulations in the world, and its population of 125 million typically sees less than ten people killed by weapons each year.
Abe is the first Japanese politician to be assassinated since Inejirō Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, was killed by a man with a samurai sword in 1960.